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| Palm Springs-South Coast Field Office | |||
Prescribed Fire ProgramFire is a primary natural disturbance process that is essential to ecological systems across the western United States. In the early 1900's, land management agencies sought to suppress all fires. This changed the severity and fire return intervals from the historic fire regime. Without fire, our forests and rangelands became overcrowded; vulnerable to attacks by insects and disease; and invaded by plants, bushes and trees not adapted to fire. Dead vegetation has accumulated greatly, increasing the risk of large catastrophic wildfires in our forests, on our rangelands, and near our communities. The vegetative conditions that have resulted from past fire suppression policies must be reversed to avoid a continuing trend of more large, high intensity fires. Prescribed fire can be used to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, and increase public and firefighter safety. It also can help us meet a variety of resource management objectives: reducing hazardous fuels (surface or ladder fuels), and restoring habitats and ecosystems. Today, we know that fire is essential to the health of our forests and rangelands. Conditions in many areas are conducive to large wildfires, and many more people now live in or near forests and rangelands. We need to ensure that fires burn in a more controlled way than is usually possible when they are caused by naturally-occurring events such as lightning strikes. To restore fire to its natural role in forests and rangelands, trained experts employ low-intensity prescribed fire techniques, applied in the spring and fall when weather conditions minimize escape and allow for controlled burning. 2012 The BLM Palm Springs-South Coast Field Office is planning prescribed fires to occur in the coming months. This includes lands in the Lake Mathews area; the Potrero ACEC; south of Banning and Beaumont; the Steele Peak area west of Perris; and the Dos Palmas Preserve near the Salton Sea, all in Riverside County. Many of these areas contain hazardous fuels within the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). The controlled burns are aimed at reducing wildfire hazards. In addition to reducing the fire hazard there are resource benefits to endangered species in many of these prescribed fires. BLM, in cooperation with CALFire and the Riverside County Habitat Conservation Agency (RCHCA), will be conducting a prescribed burn to improve Stephens' kangaroo rat (Dipodomys stephensi) habitat in the Lake Mathews SKR Reserve. 79 acres are planned to be burned to remove invasive grasses that are crowding out SKR. The burn is planned for the morning of Wednesday, May 16, 2012. Please contact James Gannon at (760) 833-7122, or jgannon@blm.gov with any questions.
Bureau of Land Management
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