Emergency watershed protection measures in highly unstable terrain on the Blake Fire, Six Rivers National Forest, 1987

Abstract

The Blake Fire burned about 730 ha of mature timber on the west slope of South Fork Mountain in northwestern California. Many steep innergorge and landslide headwall areas burned very hot, killing most large trees and consuming much of the large organic debris in unstable drainages. This created a potential for adverse effects on downstream fisheries from landsliding and the release of sediment formerly retained behind large organic debris. Emergency rehabilitation focused on enhancing channel conditions by falling and bucking downed logs and dead trees and by salvaging dead "high-risk"-trees that could displace soil directly into these drainages by toppling or sliding. Straw bales were wedged behind "replacement" logs to promote retention of landslide debris and other sediment. Current field observations indicate that some of these emergency measures have been effective in the short term. Further data collection and analysis will be needed to evaluate long-term effectiveness.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings of the symposium on fire and watershed management

Citation

Smith, Mark E.; Wright, Kenneth A. 1989. Emergency watershed protection measures in highly unstable terrain on the Blake Fire, Six Rivers National Forest, 1987. In: Berg, Neil H. tech. coord. Proceedings of the Symposium on Fire and Watershed Management: October 26-28, 1988, Sacramento, California. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-109. Berkeley, Calif.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station: 103-108