Southwestern Oregon Community Fire Plan

Location:
Medford, Oregon

What challenges were faced and how were they overcome?

After dozens of public-input sessions, planning meetings, and report iterations, the parties are naturally concerned about how the plan will be implemented. As with many collaborative processes that encompass watershed-scale issues, there is lingering ambiguity about the role and responsibility of the federal agencies towards the fire planning process and the implementation of the fire plan. One member of the planning team notes, "it's our intention to move forward stridently to implement this plan, but we have worries…we need to prod the agencies to make sure they are the cheerleader of this process so the agencies do the implementation because otherwise it's just another plan sitting on the shelf." But, a leading agency representative from the Forest Service commented, "from the beginning, the partnership folks were expecting it to be more of a plan that would be like 'Here Forest Service and BLM, this is what we want you to be doing on your lands;' but it turned out to be more focused on the private lands and what the private landowners could be doing as far as fuel hazards reduction." Another agency official noted, "we have other purposes for doing what we do and not all of our efforts are currently directed at the urban interface; we've got other parts of the forest we need to manage." Consequently, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding who will be implementing this plan, on what lands, and with what resources.

Plan implementation is a pervasive challenge for many initiatives involving multiple organizations working on landscape scale projects. Nevertheless, the Community Fire Plan specifically details how the Forest Service and BLM intend to use the plan to achieve three main objectives under the National Fire Plan, including: reduction of hazardous fuels, community assistance, and accountability. With regard to fuels reduction, the plan provides the agencies with numerous suggestions and criteria for coordinating efforts on public and private lands, as well as lists of neighborhood contacts or as one partner put it, "the movers and shakers" who can participate in fuel reduction efforts on the ground. The plan also enables the agencies to provide better community assistance to private parties in the event of an emergency. For example, the plan updates emergency communications and procedures and details the role of new Emergency Community Contacts - neighborhood volunteers who are knowledgeable of local roads, terrain, and houses and who can relay clear, concise, and accurate reports from the agencies and others to communities in danger.

The plan also describes steps to monitor the implementation of the proposed fire management strategies in each SPA, which will help parties remain knowledgeable about and accountable for progress in meeting the plan's goals. Projects to track plan implementation fall into three categories: data gathering, social components, and effectiveness. Providing that funds are available, data gathering efforts will determine how many acres are being treated for fuel reduction as a result of the fire plan. The parties plan on tracking this information every six months for five years and will report findings in the community newspaper and to agencies at periodic meetings. Regarding the monitoring of the plan's social components or aspects, the project team intends to answer two questions: 1) how the plan affects residents' attitudes and behavior regarding fire danger and hazardous fuels?, and 2) how the plan affected agencies' ways of working together with private landowners? Finally, effectiveness monitoring will be used to monitor the impact of projects designed to reduce fire hazards and manage fuels. Methods used in effectiveness monitoring will involve photo points and plots in woodlands and brush fields to monitor seasonal fuel conditions, seasonal tree growth and survival, changes in canopies, as well as plant community response to burning.

This site was developed by the Ecosystem Management Initiative through a partnership with the US Forest Service and the US Department of Interior. Read more.