Strategic Fuel Break Assessment Unit Cards

PROJECT GOAL

Given the objectives of protecting values at risk and supporting fire suppression operations, develop a decision support tool which establishes a priority ranking system for maintaining the existing system of fuel breaks Strategic Fuel on the Los Padres National Forest. Prepared by: Adaptive Management Services Enterprise Team Break

Assessment

Establishing priorities for maintaining Fuel Breaks on the Los Padres National Forest

Table of Contents Introduction ...... 3 Current Management Direction ...... 4 Vegetation Management ...... 5 Fuel Break Analysis Project Direction ...... 5 The Los Padres National Forest Setting ...... 6 Weather as it affects the Forest ...... 7 Use of fuel breaks ...... 7 Fuel break design ...... 7 Fuel breaks as wildfire control features ...... 8 Challenges of constructing, maintaining and utilizing fuel breaks as a tactical wildfire control feature ...... 10 Historic use of fuel breaks ...... 12 Current use of fuel breaks ...... 12 Fuel Break Analysis Project ...... 13 Scope of the analysis ...... 13 Methodology ...... 13 Fuel break data set ...... 14 Weather data ...... 15 Fuel break characteristics evaluated ...... 17 Tier 1 Elements ...... 17 Tier 2 Elements ...... 18 Tier 3 Elements ...... 19 Results ...... 20 Recommendations ...... 22 Fuel break Gap Analysis ...... 22 Connectivity with Adjacent Forests and Other Agencies ...... 22 References ...... 24 Appendix A - Methodology ...... 25 Fuel break data set ...... 25 Weather Analysis ...... 26 Fire Modeling ...... 28 Analysis ...... 30 Tier 1 ...... 30 Modeled arrival time ...... 30 Historic ignitions ...... 31

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Historic Burn Frequency...... 31 Fire Suppression Response Time -Travel from Nearest Fire Station(s) along Connected Roads ...... 31 Tier 2 ...... 31 Population Density ...... 31 Homes ...... 32 Infrastructure - Communication Sites, Power Transmission and Telephone Lines ...... 32 Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) ...... 32 Tier 3 ...... 32 Safety ...... 33 Existing Vegetation Condition ...... 33 Maintenance Workability (Average Slope) ...... 33 Maintenance Cost ...... 34 Management Concerns ...... 34 Scoring Matrix ...... 35

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Introduction The use of fuel breaks as fire control features on the landscape of the Los Padres National Forest dates back to the 1930 and road, trail and fuel break construction work performed by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Since the 1930s the forest has continued to construct new fuel breaks and maintain existing fuel breaks in order to enhance the ability of firefighters to suppress wildfires. Current Land Management Plan (LMP) direction recognizes the value of fuel breaks as part of an integrated approach to wildfire suppression by establishing a goal of maintaining 1,000 acres of the existing legacy fuel break system annually. While the LMP recognizes the need to maintain the existing fuel break system, it does not establish priorities for which fuel breaks should be maintained nor does the LMP evaluate which of the fuel breaks provide the greatest value as fire control features.

The Forest has a fuel break system of approximately 1,025 miles. Assuming an average fuel break width of 600 feet, 74,545 acres of fuel break exist within the system. Under the current management direction not all of the existing system can be treated on a 10-year or less rotational basis. Maintaining fuel breaks every 10- year or less is required to retain the low fuel loadings necessary to provide for enhanced tactical fire suppression opportunities. Under current LMP direction only 13.4% of the existing Los Padres National Forest fuel break system can be maintained to standard (Table 1).

Table 1. Annual number of acres which need to be treated to maintain the legacy fuel break system (10-year rotational treatment standard) Maintenance Level Annual Need 100% 7,445 80% 5,963 60% 4,472 40% 2,981 20% 1,490

Because fuel breaks are considered a strategic fire control feature on the southern California National Forests, Region 5 Fire and Aviation Management tasked Adaptive Management Services Enterprise Team (AMSET) to complete a science-based analysis of the current legacy fuel break system to develop a decision support tool to determine which fuel breaks should be retained and maintained within the system and which should be allowed to evolve naturally back into the existing landscape.

The overarching objective of this analysis was to identify a “Strategic fuel break system with the highest probability of assisting fire suppression operations and maximizing the potential for long term maintenance.”

The Southern California National Forests Land Management Plans (LMP) Part 3, page 96, define a fuel break as:

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“A wide strip or block of land on which native or pre-existing vegetation has been permanently modified so that fires burning into it can be more readily extinguished.”

Recent research conducted on the effectiveness of fuel breaks in southern California (Syphard et al. 2011) stated, “Fuel breaks play a large part on the southern California landscape and it is still a treatment of choice when evaluating fuel treatments in the region.” Significant findings of this research include the following:  Vegetation structure played an important role in improving fuel break outcome (e.g., success) because well maintained fuel breaks were much easier for firefighters to access in time to prepare the fuel break for suppression activities.  Forests with the highest density and area of fuel breaks did not have the highest overall effectiveness of fuel breaks, suggesting that treating more area alone does not necessarily increase the effectiveness of fire suppression actions.  Fuel breaks have played an important role in controlling large fires, but primarily when they facilitated firefighting activities. In remote parts of a forest where access is limited, fuel breaks are unlikely to serve the objective of protecting communities at the wildland-urban interface.  Quantitative and spatially explicit analyses could potentially be helpful in refining strategic decisions involving future maintenance of the existing fuel break system.

These findings support the need for a scientific approach to evaluate the existing fuel break system. This analysis of the legacy fuel break system of the Los Padres National Forest is intended to provide land managers with decision support tools that will assist in prioritizing the maintenance of the fuel break system based on current management direction and fiscal and environmental constraints.

Current Management Direction The current Land Management Plan (LMP) provides little specific direction regarding how the Forest will achieve desired conditions regarding fire and vegetation management. The lack of specific direction provides the Forest an opportunity to develop its own strategy, including the scheduling, location and intensity of hazardous fuel treatments designed to achieve the LMP desired conditions. Annual hazardous fuel budget allocations and the availability of approved environmental compliance documents often drive the location and amount of fuel break maintenance performed on the Forest.

The actual program direction regarding the construction and maintenance of fuel breaks provided in the LMP states the following:

LMP Fire 5 - Fuel breaks and indirect community protection  Maintain the existing system of roadside fuelbreaks and fuelbreaks along watershed boundaries to minimize fire size and the number of communities threatened by both fire and flood.

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Vegetation Management The Land Management Plan for the Los Padres National Forest incorporates an integrated set of vegetation management actions designed to meet multiple objectives including the restoration of forest health and community wildfire protection. The following management goals related to fuel breaks were identified in the LMP Part 2, page 22.

 Fuel break maintenance - Annual Need: 1,000 acres. Existing fuel breaks are generally maintained using prescribed fire or grazing. Most of the fuel breaks are in high hazard chaparral areas and are designed to limit wildland fire size and provide firefighter access and improved firefighter safety. A few of the fuel breaks are in coniferous forest and serve to limit fire spread from or towards communities or timber stands in poor condition. Most of the existing fuel breaks are on ridge tops or along roads.

 Fuel break construction - Annual Need: 400 acres. Most of the planned fuel breaks are also along roads and ridge tops and are proposed for limiting wildland fire patch size. Most fuel breaks are constructed with machinery. Some are built by hand or by using prescribed fire. Herbicides may be used to kill re-sprouting chaparral and then fire used to maintain the fuel break over time. Fuel breaks are sometimes constructed near communities to provide some level of future protection in cases where land ownership patterns or topography limit the applicability of the Wildland/Urban Interface Defense and Threat Zones concept.

The current suggested maintenance level of 1,000 acres annually does not allow for the maintenance of the entire existing fuel break system. The LMP suggests an additional 400 acres of fuel break is needed for community protection. The addition of 400 acres annually to the fuel break system will only add to an existing maintenance backlog. By evaluating the existing fuel break system, land managers will be able to make strategic decisions regarding which fuel breaks should be dropped from the maintenance cycle. By reducing the maintenance needs to only those fuel breaks which enhance fire suppression capacity and provide protection of values at risk, the additional 400 acres of new fuel break construction could potentially be added to the system without exasperating the maintenance backlog.

Fuel Break Analysis Project Direction In coordination with the four southern California National Forests, specific objectives were identified to guide the development of the fuel break analysis process with the goal of

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producing a decision support tool that prioritizes fuel breaks across individual National Forests. The objectives defined by the Los Padres National Forest were:

 Identify a strategic fuel break system that meets the needs of fire management to assist in suppressing wildfires in southern California. o The strategy should be based on a set of criteria that reflects the existing conditions. Existing data will be used to the greatest extent possible.  The hierarchy of the protection of human life, property and natural resources will be integrated into the analysis.  Create a living, updatable tool that allows local fire managers to make changes as new information becomes available or landscape level fire disturbance occurs.

The Los Padres National Forest Setting The Los Padres National Forest has characteristics of a true “urban interface” where communities have built up to the very boundary of the Forest and an “urban intermix”, where improvements are scattered within the wildlands without hard edges to define developed from undeveloped lands. The forest is unique among the four southern California forest in that wilderness is a major feature on the land. Currently the forest is comprised of more than 850,000 acres of designated wilderness. Restrictions apply to the maintenance of historic fuel breaks which now exist within the boundary of designated wildernesses.

Fire is a primary agent of change in the vegetation patterns across the southern California landscape. The distribution, composition, and structure of almost all plant communities in this region are influenced by fire. Historically, fires appear to have burned under a wide range of environmental conditions, exhibiting varied fire intensities related to weather and fuel conditions.

Wildfires on the Los Padres National Forest occur throughout the year; due to the fire- supportive Mediterranean climate, chaparral vegetation, and rugged topography. The fires can spread rapidly under Sundowner/Santa Ana winds. However, large fires on the Los Padres are often not a function of strong winds, but reflect the influence of heavy fuel loads and steep topography on fire spread. Examples of large fires that have affected the Los Padres National Forest are the 240,207 acre Zaca Fire of July 2007, the 220,000 acre Matilija Fire of September 1932 and the 177,866 acre Marble Cone Fire of August 1977.

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Weather as it affects the Forest The Los Padres National Forest has a Mediterranean climate which is defined as a climate with cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers. Daytime high temperatures commonly exceed 100°F in the summer (May through October). The forest has the greatest climatic diversity of the southern Californian forest with coastal climates more dominate on the Monterey, Santa Lucia and Santa Barbara Districts and inland mountain climate association found extensively on the Ojai and Mount Pinos Ranger Districts. Precipitation occurs primarily from October through April with significant variation occurring geographically. Significant summer time precipitation is rare, but occasional monsoonal rains can affect the interior mountains.

A major local weather factor affecting fire behavior is the development of Sundowner/Santa Ana winds, generally during the fall. These foehn winds are produced by different climatological features, but both produce strong downslope winds. The winds channel through major east- west oriented drainages and mountain passes which constrict the wind flow increasing their speed (Figure 1). These foehn winds may exceed 60 miles per hour and bring high temperatures and low relative humidity creating some of the worst fire weather conditions in the country.

Several days or weeks of these conditions occur almost every autumn when fuels are at their driest (Shroeder et al. 1964). Under Santa Ana wind conditions, fire spread is rapid sometimes covering 30,000 hectares (over 74,000 acres) in a single day through fuels of any age class (Phillips 1970).

Use of fuel breaks Fuel break design Fuel breaks are not designed to stop fire spread, especially during periods of strong winds when fire brands can be blown across these linear features (Agee et al., 2000). However, fuel breaks do provide opportunities for firefighting success under less extreme Figure 1. Surface pressure patterns that contribute to Sundowner and Santa Ana winds. fire weather conditions by providing

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areas of lower fireline intensities, improved firefighter access and enhanced fireline production rates.

The concept of a fuel break is simple. By providing areas of reduced fuel loading; reduced fire intensity can be created. In addition to reducing fire intensity, fuel breaks increase fireline construction rates, reduce the fire retardant coverage level required to effectively coat vegetation and provide for points of access and travel for ground-based firefighters. The lighter fuels, often grasses, associated with fuel breaks also provide opportunities for indirect fireline construction through backfire or burn-out operations to consume fuel ahead of the spread of the main fire.

Fuel breaks as wildfire control features The effectiveness of a fuel break from a fire behavior perspective is based on two primary characteristics:  The effects of slope reversal on fire spread - The ridge top nature of many fuel breaks allows for much of the radiant and convective heat of a fire to be transferred into the atmosphere rather than preheating adjacent fuels. The reduced effect of radiant and convective heat on adjacent fuel slows fire spread at the fuel break. As the fire burns across the fuel break, it often does so in a backing or flanking orientation leading to reduced rates of spread as compared to fire spread in head fire alignment. The change to a backing or flanking fire associated with the change in orientation of the fire to topography provides opportunities for firefighting success.

 Lighter fuel loads produce lower fireline intensity – Maintained fuel breaks are generally dominated by grass fuel types and early seral stage vegetation. There is generally a lack of fuel continuity along a fuel break which disrupts heat transfer processes, slowing overall fire spread. Lower fireline intensity due to reduced fuel loads and non- continuous fuels, reduces the resistance to control of a fire by enhancing the effectiveness of fire retardants, foams, water and constructed fireline.

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Figure 2. Effects on fireline intensity and flame length which can be achieved through the maintenance of the fuel break. Source: NEXUS.

Fuel breaks also have physical influence on firefighting effectiveness. The physical attributes of a fuel break which enhance firefighting efforts include:  Improved effectiveness of aerial firefighting resources – Water and retardant dropping helicopters and air tankers are more effective when working along ridgeline locations, such as those associated with fuel breaks. Flight paths for aircraft are safer, visibility is generally better than canyon locations and the reduced fuel load of fuel breaks allows lower fire retardant coverage levels to be effective in checking fire spread. Water, foam or retardant delivered by helicopters are also more effective when delivered onto areas of lighter fuel loading.

 Increased firefighter access and production rates – Both aerial and ground-based firefighters have improved fireline construction rates in the lighter fuels associated with fuel breaks. Hand crew fireline construction rates can increase up to six times when working in grass dominated fuels rather than in chaparral. Dozers have similar increases in production rates and air tankers can reduce coverage levels in lighter fuels; allowing their retardant to be effectively spread over a greater distance during a single drop (NWCG, 2004).

A 2011 study on the role of fuel breaks on three national forests in southern California indicates that firefighter access was the only variable studied which directly improved the effectiveness of a fuel break. The study concluded that access for firefighters to initiate tactical operations was the most influential variable regarding the effectiveness of fuel breaks (Syphard et al., 2011).

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Challenges of constructing, maintaining and utilizing fuel breaks as a tactical wildfire control feature

Current land management direction on the Los Padres National Forest allows for the construction of new fuel breaks at a rate of 400 acres annually. The focus of new fuel break construction in the Land Management Plan (LMP) is for direct and indirect community protection.

Constructing new fuel breaks, especially in chaparral vegetation, is becoming increasingly controversial as the amount of older aged chaparral continues to decrease on the four southern California National Forests. Fuel breaks are also widely cited as being conveyors of invasive species onto the National Forest (Merriam, 2007). These two factors alone increase the complexity of the trade-offs between the effectiveness of a proposed fuel break and its potential environmental consequences. The Forests understand the critical value in maintaining chaparral for properly functioning watersheds across Southern California. Ignition and weather patterns ensure fire management will always be challenged in protecting these watersheds from unwanted wildfire. Ridgelines maintained as fuelbreaks in high fire frequency areas have proven effective in offering advantages for taking suppression action and are often the best chance for keeping large fires from spreading into multiple watersheds. Invasive weed monitoring is a regular part of mitigation measures within environmental analysis; action is taken when species are identified as a threat to local biological communities.

Current LMP direction also indicates that the Los Padres National Forest should maintain an average of 1,000 acres annually of existing fuel breaks. While fuel break maintenance can be environmentally less problematic than new construction, the use of mechanized equipment and prescribed fire to maintain fuel breaks is perceived to pose many of the same environmental concerns as does new fuel break construction.

The use of prescribed fire as a tool to maintain fuel breaks is becoming increasing complex for several reasons including: declining hazardous fuels treatment budgets, negative air quality impacts, lack of available burn days in southern California, and fewer qualified personnel to lead prescribed fire activities. Accomplishing maintenance of the existing fuel break system through mechanical treatments, while effective, is slow and costly when compared to prescribed fire.

The successful utilization of fuel breaks as a fire control feature is often connected to the timing of fire suppression actions. During direct fireline construction, air tankers and helicopters can support ground firefighters to effectively control fire spread along established

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fuel breaks. The Forest can be document cases where portions of the final fire perimeter overlays an existing fuel break. An example is the Basin/Indians Fires where large segments of the final fire perimeter coincide with established fuel breaks (Figure 3).

 Figure 3. Fuelbreak interaction with wildfire on the Monterey Ranger District. Fuelbreaks often coincide with portions of the final fire perimeter, even on large wildfires such as the Basin Complex and Kirk Complex.

Fuel breaks are often improved by mechanical equipment ahead of the main fire as part of an indirect fire suppression strategy. These indirect firelines serve as control lines during burn out operations to establish an area of consumed fuel (black line) in an attempt to slow or stop the advancing main fire. Time is required to construct these indirect firelines and to burn them out successfully. Cases can be cited where insufficient lead time hampered the operational success of these tactics and the main fire spread across the indirect fireline and/or unimproved fuel break.

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Historic use of fuel breaks The boundaries of the Los Padres National Forest began to evolve in 1898 with the Pine Mountain and Zaca Lake Reserves. A series of withdrawals, aggregations and name changes followed before the area was designated “Los Padres” and assumed a semblance of its current character in the 1938 (Blakley, 1985). Following a series of devastating floods in the 1930’s congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1944 authorizing the Secretary of Agriculture to initiate measures to retard runoff and water flow, prevent soil erosion, and carry out works of improvement in the interest of flood control on the Santa Ynez River watershed. These flood control measures included the authorization for land treatment and flood control structures (Code of Federal Regulations, Title 7, 1969). As part of the land treatment authorized in the Flood Control Act, a “Pre-attack Plan” was put into action in the 1950’s. Firelines (fuelbreaks) were bulldozed along the top of many ridges in the Forest to provide access and a basic line from which to fight fire (Blaklay, 1985). Maintenance of the existing “Pre-attack” fuelbreak system has been a management priority since the 1950s. Much like the Los Angeles River on the Angeles National Forest, the Santa Ynez River watershed received special federal funding to support vegetation management actions during the 1970s and early 1980s. These funds were exclusively used within sphere of influence of the Santa Ynez watershed and provided the funding source necessary to implement both landscape level prescribed burns and fuelbreak construction and maintenance projects. One of the early management applications of fuelbreaks was to use these linear features as control points for prescribed burns (Green, 1977). Forest fuel management direction between the late-1970s and mid-1990s was to create a “mosaic of chaparral age classes” across the landscape to help limit fire size on the forest. Much of this activity occurred within the Santa Ynez watershed due to the augmented funding received by the forest for flood control activities. The Los Padres still maintains a 10,000 acre annual LMP goal of large-scale prescribed burns in chaparral to “reduce fire hazard near communities or as part of an overall landscape mosaic designed to limit the spread of wildland fire” (Forest Service, 2005). Current use of fuel breaks Fuel breaks continue to be an important fire suppression control feature and are used widely in community protection efforts across the Forest. Incident Commanders assigned to wildland fires burning on the Forest utilize the existing fuel break system as both primary fire control features and as contingency containment lines.

The Forest’s LMP states, “Most of the fuel breaks are in high hazard chaparral areas and are designed to limit wildland fire size and provide firefighter access and improved firefighter safety”. The LMP also states that “most of the planned fuel breaks are also along roads and

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ridge tops and are proposed for limiting wildland fire patch size … Fuel breaks are sometimes constructed near communities to provide some level of future protection in cases where land ownership patterns or topography limit the applicability of the Wildland/Urban Interface Defense and Threat Zones concept”.

The concept that fuel breaks will serve as control points for landscape level prescribed fires is still embraced on the forest as the Los Padres is the last of the southern California National Forests that maintains an active landscape scale prescribed fire program.

As the number of wilderness acres has increased over the past twenty years, maintaining fuel breaks on the perimeters of the wilderness areas has received additional management focus. These fuelbreaks serve as potential fire control points, providing tactical options to fire managers as they attempt to protect the public and wilderness resource and values from the impacts of wildfire and wildfire suppression actions.

Fuel Break Analysis Project Scope of the analysis At the request of the Regional Office Fire Staff, this analysis identifies fuel breaks on the Los Padres National Forest (LPF) with the greatest strategic value in protecting values at risk while also supporting fire control efforts. A three tiered approach was undertaken to limit bias in evaluating the entirely of the LPF fuel break system, with the analysis being data driven, rather than being a subjective evaluation. Through the identification of strategic fuel breaks on the forest, fire managers will be better able to direct human and fiscal capital towards maintaining the “strategic” fuel breaks while allowing those existing fuel breaks of lesser strategic value to return overtime to the vegetative structure of the surrounding landscape. This analysis only includes existing fuel breaks and does not include any proposed fuel break construction projects. Methodology Fire behavior modeling, spatial analysis, fuel break maintenance considerations and the presence or absence of potential management concerns were all considered in the analysis of the existing fuel break system on the Forest. However, only fire behavior and information regarding values at risk was used to establish fuel break priority rankings. Information related to fuel break maintenance and potential management concerns is presented to inform land managers of other influencing factors which may drive future management decisions. For the purposes of this analysis, the Forest was divided into two “landscapes” one representing the main body of the forest and the second representing the Monterey Ranger

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District. Each landscape was buffered by 1.0km to consider the influences of wildfire and values at risk immediately adjacent to the Forest. Fuel break data set For the Main Body of the Forest the fuel breaks included in this analysis are a subset of those used by Syphard, Keeley and Brennan in their 2011 paper “Comparing the role of fuel breaks across southern California national forests”. The focus of this analysis was on linear fuel treatment features (fuel breaks) with the data set also including a limited number of polygon shaped treatments where only the treatment’s perimeter are included in the analysis. For the Monterey Ranger District analysis no USGS data was available. Fuel breaks identified in the analysis were imported from the Region 5, Fire and Aviation Management “Fireshed Analysis” which was augmented by digitized data provided by Forest staff. A determination was made to only include those fuel breaks which had the majority of their acres on Forest Service (NFS) lands. Fuel breaks could extend beyond Forest Service lands as long as the majority of the acres were under Forest Service land management control. Two analysis landscapes were generated from 2010 LANDFIRE data and extended 1-km around the administrative boundary of the forest and private in-holdings. These landscapes allowed for the inclusion of fuel breaks which may influence fire behavior and fire operations immediately adjacent to NFS lands. Only fuel breaks that were 100-percent within these landscapes were analyzed. Modification to the fuel model layer of the landscapes was required to account for recent large fire activity on the forest. A determination was made to only modify the fuels layer where a fire of 500 acres or greater completely or partially overlaid a landscape. Six fires met the established criteria, the 2011 Figueroa Fire, 2012 Hill Fire, 2013 Grand Fire, 2013 Rancho Fire, 2013 White Fire and the 2013 Pfieffer Fire. Vegetation burn severity data was not available for these fires and soil burn severity data for the White and Pfieffer Fire indicated only low to moderate severity. Given the limited availability of data conservative modifications to the existing fuel data were made as shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Fuel model changes to the landscape file use in FlamMap based on fire of 500 acres or greater between 2011 through 2013 2010 LANDFIRE 40 Modifications to LANDFIRE Fuel Fire Behavior Fuel Model Layer based on recent Model Layer wildfires GR1 No change GR2 No change GS1 No change GS2 GS1 NB1 No change

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NB3 No change NB8 No change NB9 No change SH1 No change SH2 SH1 SH7 SH2 TL1 No change TL2 No change TL3 No change TL4 TL3 TL6 TL2 TL7 TL4 TU1 No change TU2 No change TU5 TU1 TL8 TL3 TL9 TL6

Scott, Burgan Fuel Model Descriptions. General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-153, June 2005 NB1 - Urban/Developed NB3 – Agricultural NB8 – Open Water NB9 – Bare Ground GR1 – Short Spars, Dry Climate Grass GR2 – Low Loa, Dry Climate Grass GS2 – Moderate Load Dry Climate Grass-Shrub SH1 – Low Load Dry Climate Shrub SH2 – Moderate Load Dry Climate Shrub SH7 – Very High Load Dry Climate Shrub TL1 – Low Load Compact Conifer Litter TL2 – Low Load Broadleaf Litter TL3 – Moderate Load Conifer Litter TL4 – Small Downed Logs TL5 – High Load Conifer Litter TL6 – Moderate Load Broadleaf Litter TL7 – Large Downed Logs TL8 – Long-Needle Litter TL9 – Very High Load Broadleaf Litter TU1 – Low Load Dry Climate Timber-Grass-Shrub TU2 – Moderate Load Humid Climate Timber-Shrub TU5 – Very High Load Dry Climate Timber-Shrub

Weather data Ten years of Remote Automated Weather Station (RAWS) data was used to develop 90th percentile thresholds, a climatological breakpoint at which only 10 percent of the values are greater in value for use in the fire behavior analysis. Data from 10 weather stations was

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obtained and grouped within FireFamily Plus into Significant Interest Groups (SIG) to develop thresholds for fire behavior modeling. One SIG was developed for each Ranger District associated with the forest. The 90th percentile weather thresholds, representing the Ranger Districts were used to simulate fire behavior characteristics and spread patterns. When greater than 50% of a fuel break fell with a NFDRS zone, the weather related inputs were used in FlamMap for the entirety of the fuel break. Table 3 displays the RAWS utilized and how they were assigned to a SIG. Table 4 shows the 90th percentile thresholds of each SIG used.

Table 3 RAWS stations assigned to Significant Interests Groups (SIG) for development of 90th percentile weather thresholds Ranger District Assigned RAWS Mount Pinos Chuchupate Rose Valley Ojai Temescal Montecito Santa Barbara Los Prietos Branch Mountain Santa Lucia Arroyo Grande Figueroa Arroyo Seco Monterey Hunter Leggit

Table 4. 90th percentile fuel moisture thresholds by National Fire Danger Rating Areas.

Mount Pinos – NFDRS Area 651 1hr (0-0.25 inch) 10hr (0.25-1.0 inch) 100hr (1-3 inch) Live Herbaceous Live Woody 1.53 2.51 5.53 1.53 60.00 Ojai - NFDRS Areas 600 and 650 1hr (0-0.25 inch) 10hr (0.25-1.0 inch) 100hr (1-3 inch) Live Herbaceous Live Woody 2.01 3.11 6.59 2.03 64.21 Santa Barbara - NFDRS Areas 614 and 586 1hr (0-0.25 inch) 10hr (0.25-1.0 inch) 100hr (1-3 inch) Live Herbaceous Live Woody 3.11 4.33 7.94 3.17 77.32 Santa Lucia - NFDRS Areas 582, 585 and 586 1hr (0-0.25 inch) 10hr (0.25-1.0 inch) 100hr (1-3 inch) Live Herbaceous Live Woody 2.50 3.54 6.83 2.53 71.28 Monterey - NFDRS Areas 560 and 585 1hr (0-0.25 inch) 10hr (0.25-1.0 inch) 100hr (1-3 inch) Live Herbaceous Live Woody 1.51 2.40 5.43 1.51 60.00

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Fuel break characteristics evaluated The elements analyzed and which feed the scoring matric (score card) establishing the final strategic rankings are a mix of fire related and human factors/influences. These elements were established as two subsets for data management purposes. Fire related factors are grouped in Tier 1 and non-fire related factors grouped in Tier 2. Each element within the tiers was ranked on a 0-6 point basis based on the interaction of the fuel break with the elements defined in the tiers. No individual factor was weighted more heavily within the analysis. A brief discussion of the elements within each Tier is presented below. Tier 1 Elements Tier 1 elements are those that relate directly to the outputs from fire behavior modelling, historic wildfire activity and fire suppression operations.  Modeled Arrival Times – FlamMap was used as the fire behavior model of choice as it allows for the evaluation of an entire landscape under a given set of environmental parameters. Because all areas of the landscape are evaluated at a single point in time, differences in fire characteristics can be spatially determined.

The Minimum Travel Time feature of FlamMap was used to model the arrival time of a wildfire originating from historic fire ignitions associated with a fuel break. Fire intersections with a fuel break were classified into three arrival time bins; 0-6 hours, 6- 12 hours and 12-24 hours. Fuel breaks with the greatest number of intersections and with intersections occurring within the lowest travel time bin were awarded the most points on the priority ranking score card. To account for varying lengths of fuel breaks, data was normalized to be the number of intersections per square mile of fuel break.

 Historic Ignitions within 3.0 Mile Corridor – This scoring factor is based on the number of ignitions which have occurred within a 1.5 mile buffer of the centerline of the fuel break being evaluated. Data obtained from Fire Program Analysis (FPA) (1992-2011) was utilized in this analysis. The greater the number of ignitions within a buffer the higher the points awarded on the score card. This element is related to the probability that an ignition will interact with a fuel break.

 Historic Burn Frequency within 3.0 Mile Buffer – Using fire history data, this scoring factor evaluates the number of different times an acre of land within the 1.5 mile buffer each side of the fuel break centerline has burned within the past twenty years. The greater the number of time that some portion of the fuel break has burned the higher the points awarded on the score card. This element is related to the probability that a fire will interact with the fuel break being evaluated.

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 Response Time from Interagency Fire Stations – The scoring factor is based on the minimum driving time from an interagency fire station to the closest point on a fuel break. The average driving rates (mph) are based on Forest Service road maintenance levels that include both NFS-roads and connected roads maintained by other agencies. This element looks at the ability of ground based firefighting resources to access and utilize a fuel break during initial attack fire operations. Lower response times to a fuel break were awarded higher points on the score card. Response times for aircraft are not included in this portion of the analysis. While aircraft can be highly effective assisting with fire control along fuel breaks, the unpredictable nature of aircraft availability precluded their inclusion in the response time analysis.

Tier 2 Elements Tier 2 elements address values at risk from wildland fire, in particular, life and property. The specifics of each Tier 2 element are:

 Population Density – Using population data from the 2010 Census this element evaluates the average number of people per square mile within a 1.5 mile radius of the fuel break buffer. This element addresses the number of people potentially affected by a fire burning in the vicinity of a fuel break and therefore the number of people that could see enhanced protection from wildland fire due to a well maintained fuel break. The score card awarded higher values to fuel breaks associated with higher population densities.

 Housing – To evaluate potential structure losses, the total number of structures within the footprint of a fuel break buffer was evaluated. To account for varying lengths of fuel breaks this number was normalized to the number of structures per square mile within the buffered area. Fuel breaks with a higher number of structures per square mile were award higher values on the score card.

 Infrastructure – This element evaluates the amount of infrastructure that is associated with a fuel break. Based on data obtained from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (HSIP NGIA gold, 2013) the number and miles of infrastructure components including communication sites was determined. The element also includes above ground electrical transmission and distribution lines and substations.

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While communication sites were tallied as individual points, electrical transmission and distribution lines, and above ground telephone lines were linear features and were normalized as the number of lines intersecting the footprint of a fuel break per square mile.

The score card combined the importance of points and linear features into a single scoring element. Fuel breaks with a greater degree of association with infrastructure features received higher scores than did fuel breaks with a lesser degree of interaction.

 Wildland Urban Interface – The LMP recognizes two fire protection areas surrounding the wildland urban interface; Defense zones and Threat zones. The Wildland Urban Interface element quantifies the portion of the fuel break that lies within either the Defense or Threat zones and assigns points on the score card based on the amount of a fuel break with these zones. Fuel breaks with more than 50% of their land base within the Defense zone received the highest ranking on the score card. Fuel breaks with less than 50% of their land base in the Defense zone, but with some portion of their land base in either the Defense or Threat zone, received one-half the maximum points on the score card. Fuel breaks with none of their land base within the Defense or Threat zone received no points. This elements attempts to emphasize the importance of the WUI as a value at risk and recognizes that fuel breaks can play a role in protecting these values.

Tier 3 Elements Tier 3 elements are not included in the prioritization process and are presented on the score card for each fuel break to inform management of issue that may be of concern when it comes to environmental compliance or values that may be at risk during fuel break maintenance operations. The Tier 3 elements are divided into two areas, Potential Management Concerns and Fuel Break Maintenance. The elements within the Potential Management Concerns are presented below and were evaluated on a presence or absence basis within a 1,000 foot buffer of the fuel break centerline.  Campgrounds  Cultural Sites  Invasive Plants  Scenic By-ways  Critical Habitat

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 Trails  Retardant Avoidance Areas The elements evaluated in the “Fuel Break Maintenance” portion of the Tier 3 analysis were ranked using a Low-Medium-High scale. These elements are not used in the prioritization rankings and are provided to inform future management decisions. A 300-foot wide buffer was applied to the fuelbreak centerline to define the analysis area. The elements evaluated are briefly described below:

 Safety/Risk – This element is evaluated based on ground transportation time of a sick or injured employee located on a fuel break to the nearest hospital. The data set for medical facilities was obtained from the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS). Travel times were averaged for individual ¼ mile segments and presented as an overall average for the fuel break. Higher average travel times received a higher ranking.

 Vegetation Condition - Existing vegetation condition based on density was used as a proxy for the difficulty of performing vegetation management activities. Vegetation density was ranked at centroids along ¼ mile segments of a fuel break (1 - Low Density, 2 - Moderate Density, 3 - High Density). The sum of these ranking were averaged to determine an overall ranking for this element. While this process oversimplifies the complexity of vegetation across a fuel break, it provides management insight into the effort required to maintain a fuel break.

 Workability – This element is based on the ability of mechanized equipment to perform fuel break maintenance work. A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was used to determine average slopes within 10 meter pixels of the 300 foot footprint of a fuel break. Low, medium and high ratings were assigned at break points of less than 25%, 25% to 35% and greater than 35% slope.

 Cost – The relative cost of performing fuel break maintenance is derived from Vegetation Condition and Workability scores. It is assumed that as vegetation becomes denser and slope steeper that the cost of maintaining a fuel break will increase.

Results The completed analysis of the existing fuel break system yielded a priority maintenance ranking of fuel breaks by Ranger District. Maintenance priorities are exclusive to the individual analysis areas (Main Body and Monterey Ranger District) and no attempt was made to level priorities

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across the analysis area. The process of establishing forest level priorities could be undertaken by forest staff utilizing the existing ranking data. The results from the analysis are presented in Strategic Fuel Break Assessment Unit Cards. This information is also found in the accompanying map packages which spatially display the fuel breaks and quantify the scores from the analysis matrix.

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Recommendations The focus of this analysis was to assist the Los Padres National Forest to better understand which fuel breaks within their existing system provides the greatest level of protection for values at risk while also providing opportunities to enhance wildfire suppression operations. This science-based approach of evaluating the forest-wide fuel break system should assist in establishing priorities as to where the forest should invest a limited pool of hazardous fuel treatment funds. While this analysis is complete within itself, there are two areas where enhancements to the analysis could prove useful. Fuel break Gap Analysis The priority maintenance rankings presented in this document look solely at the usefulness of an individual fuel break and does not evaluated the interconnectivity of the system as a whole. Because the interconnected nature of the system was not evaluated it is possible that “gaps” in the system may exist. A gap in the fuel break system could provide an opportunity for a fire to escape containment. It is recommended that the Forest spatially evaluate how the priority rankings affect the interconnectedness of the fuel break system. Understanding that the forest does not have the funding to fully maintain the entire existing system, a percentage of the full system using the priority rankings should be completed to look for strategic gaps. An example of this process could use this methodology:  Assuming that under projected funding levels that only 50% of the existing fuel break system could be maintained over a 10 year maintenance cycle, the top ½ of the priority maintenance list for each Ranger District could be overlaid on a map. By looking at the spatial distribution of the top ½ of the fuel breaks, “gaps” could be easily identified and management decisions made on how to fill the gaps to assure that the fuel break system that is maintained meets the operational requirements for interconnectedness. This methodology could be applied at different funding levels to assure that a fuel break maintenance strategy is flexible to fluctuations in funding. Connectivity with Adjacent Forests and Other Agencies The fuel break maintenance analysis performed on the Los Padres National Forest was also performed on the other three southern California National Forests. The Los Padres has direct connectivity with the Angeles National Forest on the Mount Pinos Ranger District. Other cooperators, in particular, Ventura County, Santa Barbara County and CALFIRE also maintain fuel breaks which may connect to fuelbreaks on the Los Padres. When considering connectivity at a wider scale than the forest these cooperating agencies should be consulted.

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This wider analysis could prove of great value in interface areas where community protection within the WUI Threat and Defense zones become a priority. The ability to connect forest fuel breaks with those of other land management agencies would help to assure that anchor points provided by the fuel break system within the communities surrounding the forest are connected to forest priority maintenance fuel breaks. This recommendation would require substantial effort and a potential re-analysis of a greater system of fuel breaks to include those fuel breaks managed by other agencies.

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References Agee, J.K. et al., 2000, The use of fuel breaks in landscape fire management; Forest Ecology and Management 127 (2000) p 55-66.

Blakley, E.R., Barnette, Karen, 1985, Historical overview Los Padres National Forest, unpublished, p 64-66.

Green, L.R., 1977. Fuel breaks and other fuel modification for wildland fire control. In: USDA Agricultural handbook, 1977.

Merriam, K.E., Keeley, J.E., and Beyers, J.L., 2007, The role of fuel breaks in the invasion of nonnative plants: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2006-5185, 69 p.

National Wildfire Coordinating Group, Fireline Handbook, PMS-410-1, Appendix A

Schroeder, M. J., M. Glovinski, and V. F. Hendricks, 1964. Synoptic weather types associated with critical fire weather. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards, Institute for Applied Technology, AD 449-630, Washington, D.C., USA.

Syphard, A.D., Keeley, J.E., and Brennan, T.J, 2011, Comparing the roles of fuel breaks across southern California national forests: Forest Ecology and Management 261 (2011) 2038-2048. USDA Forest Service, 2005, Land Management Plan, Part 2 Los Padres National Forest Strategy, p 23

USDA Forest Service, 2005, Design criteria for southern California national forests, Land Management Plan, Part 3, 96p

USDA Forest Service, Fire and Aviation Management Washington DC, Fire Family Plus Version 4.1

United States Census Bureau. 2010 Census. U.S. Census Bureau. 2010. Web. 1 January 2013 http://www.census.gov/2010census/data/

USDA Forest Service, Fire and Aviation Management Washington DC, FlamMap, Version 5

USDA Forest Service, Fire and Aviation Management Washington DC, Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) data download, 2013

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Appendix A - Methodology The methodology developed to determine which fuel breaks on the Los Padres National Forest have the greatest potential to aid in fire suppression operations while also meeting public safety concerns and protecting values at risk is a mix of science-based analysis and professional judgment. Establishing weather thresholds for use in fire modeling, running accepted fire modeling programs and using GIS based analysis to synthesis fire behavior outputs represent the science side of the analysis.

Profession judgment was required to develop relative ratings for elements such as population density, safety, workability and costs. Low, Medium and High rating bins were established for these elements based on a variety of criteria developed by fire and resource professionals from Adaptive Management Services Enterprise Team (AMSET) and the Los Padres National Forest. The process used to establish the breakpoints for these bins was completed before the analysis progressed in an attempt to eliminate bias in the analysis process.

The use of AMSET as an outsider to local management decisions was key in filtering any bias that may have affected the outcome of the analysis. While input from forest staff was important in developing the evaluation criteria, the evaluation process was conducted outside of influence of forest leadership.

The results of this analysis are rankings of the relative importance of fuel breaks located in the two analysis areas of the forest, the Monterey Ranger District and the “Main Body” of the forest, which includes the other four Districts. No attempt was made to level the rankings across these two analysis areas. Fuel break data set For the Main Body of the Forest the fuel breaks analyzed are a subset of those used by Syphard, Keeley and Brennan in their 2011 paper “Comparing the role of fuel breaks across southern California national forests”. This data set was modified by staff from the Los Padres National Forest who introduced other non-linear fuel treatments into the data set. These non-linear treatments were designed and constructed to function as fuel breaks. The outer perimeters of these treatments had a 300-foot buffer established in GIS to allow them to function as a linear feature within the analysis.

For the Monterey Ranger District portion no USGS data was available. Fuel breaks identified in the analysis were imported from the Region 5, Fire and Aviation Management “Fireshed Analysis” which was augmented by digitized data provided by Forest staff.

Only fuel breaks with over 80 percent of their land base located on National Forest System (NFS) lands were included in the analysis. To help account for wildfire activities near the administrative boundary of the forest, fuel breaks were allowed to extend onto non-NFS lands outside the forest up to 1 kilometer. Where fuel breaks extended off the forest, the requirement that a minimum of 80 percent of the land base was on NFS land still applied before a fuel break was added to the dataset. The requirement that a fuel break be primarily on NFS land assures that the Forest Service has the responsibility for the majority of future maintenance.

A buffer of 1.5 miles each side of centerline of a fuel break was developed to establish the analysis area for each fuel break included in the final dataset. The buffered area provided the spatial boundary for evaluating elements associated with the analysis. Not every element required the use of the full buffer,

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however establishing a spatial boundary for the analysis allowed for the quantification of several of the evaluated elements. Weather Analysis FireFamily Plus was used to analyze the weather records associated with the two analysis areas. The weather analysis evaluated 10 years of weather records from 10 Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) associated with the forest. Significant Interest Groups (SIGs) were developed for each of the five Ranger Districts found on the forest and each weather station within a SIG was weighted equally when developing percentile climatological and fuel moisture thresholds. The weather data set was trimmed to reflect fire season only, with only data between June 1 and October 31, for the years 2003 through 2013 used. The 90th percentile breakpoint representing “Very High” fire danger conditions was used for the analysis. Percentile values obtained from the weather analysis were the input values used in the fire behavior modeling.

The 90th percentile average wind speed for each SIG was derived from archived climatology data and was carried forward into the fire behavior modeling (Table 1). Wind roses generated from FireFamily Plus were used to determine the dominant wind direction for each SIG (Figure 1). The wind direction and the 90th percentile average wind speed were used as inputs into the Wind Ninja function FlamMap. Ultimately the wind vector grids generated by Wind Ninja were utilized in the Minimum Travel Time module of FlamMap.

Table 5. Breakpoints and percentile values used for wind inputs into fire behavior modeling

Mount Pinos SIG Ojai SIG Data years: 2003 - 2013 Data years: 2003 - 2013 Analysis Period Length: 1 day Analysis Period Length: 1 day Annual filter dates: June 1 - October 31 Annual filter dates: June 1 -October 31 Variable: Wind Speed Variable: Wind Speed 90% = 9 MPH 90% = 9 MPH

Santa Barbara SIG Santa Lucia SIG Data years: 2003 - 2013 Data years: 2003 - 2013 Analysis Period Length: 1 day Analysis Period Length: 1 day Annual filter dates: June 1-October 31 Annual filter dates: June 1-October 31 Variable: Wind Speed Variable: Wind Speed 90% = 5 MPH 90% = 6 MPH

Monterey SIG Data years: 2003 - 2013 Analysis Period Length: 1 days Annual filter dates: June 1-October 31 Variable: Wind Speed 90% = 8 MPH

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Figure 1. Wind rose for the five Analysis Areas used in the fuel break prioritization process

Fuel moisture values at the 90th percentile were also obtained during the analysis of climatological data. Table 2 displays the values used in the fire behavior modeling.

Table 6. Fuel moistures values for the NFDRS Fire Danger Rating Areas used in the fire behavior modeling portion of the fuel break prioritization process.

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Fire Modeling Two unique landscape spatial files (LCP) were developed using LANDFIRE 2010 data. The LCP files contained the eight required spatial layers used by FlamMap. The fuel model layer within the landscape file was modified to account for fires greater than 500 acres that burned within the analysis area between the publishing of the 2010 LANDFIRE data set and December 31, 2013. The use of the 500 acre threshold for modifying the fuel layer was based on professional judgment, but is still somewhat arbitrary. Smaller fires could had been considered but were not deemed to have had a significant enough landscape level effect to influence the outcome of the analysis.

Six fires met the established criteria, the 2011 Figueroa Fire, 2012 Hill Fire, 2013 Grand Fire, 2013 Rancho Fire, 2013 White Fire and the 2013 Pfieffer Fire. Vegetation burn severity data was not available for these fires and soil burn severity data for the White and Pfieffer Fire indicated low to moderate severity. Given the limited availability of data conservative medications to the existing fuel data were made as shown in Table 3.

Table 7. Fuel model changes based on fires greater than 500 acres in the analysis area between 2011 and 2013

2010 LANDFIRE 40 Modifications to LANDFIRE Fuel Fire Behavior Fuel Model Layer based on recent Model Layer wildfires GR1 No change GR2 No change GS1 No change GS2 GS1 NB1 No change NB3 No change NB8 No change NB9 No change SH1 No change SH2 SH1 SH7 SH2 TL1 No change TL2 No change TL3 No change TL4 TL3 TL6 TL2 TL7 TL4 TU1 No change TU2 No change TU5 TU1 TL8 TL3 TL9 TL6 Scott, Burgan Fuel Model Descriptions. General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-153, June 2005 NB1 - Urban/Developed NB3 – Agricultural Page | 28

NB8 – Open Water NB9 – Bare Ground GR1 – Short Spars, Dry Climate Grass GR2 – Low Loa, Dry Climate Grass GS2 – Moderate Load Dry Climate Grass-Shrub SH1 – Low Load Dry Climate Shrub SH2 – Moderate Load Dry Climate Shrub SH7 – Very High Load Dry Climate Shrub TL1 – Low Load Compact Conifer Litter TL2 – Low Load Broadleaf Litter TL3 – Moderate Load Conifer Litter TL4 – Small Downed Logs TL5 – High Load Conifer Litter TL6 – Moderate Load Broadleaf Litter TL7 – Large Downed Logs TL8 – Long-Needle Litter TL9 – Very High Load Broadleaf Litter TU1 – Low Load Dry Climate Timber-Grass-Shrub TU2 – Moderate Load Humid Climate Timber-Shrub TU5 – Very High Load Dry Climate Timber-Shrub

Fire behavior modeling for the analysis utilized the Minimum Travel Time (MTT) module of FlamMap 5.0. The MTT module is a two-dimensional fire growth model which calculates fire growth and fire behavior characteristics by identifying fire flow paths with the minimum fire spread times from point, line or polygon ignition sources. In theory, the results from MTT are identical to the wave-front fire expansion used in FARSITE with the exception that MTT holds all weather and fuel moisture conditions constant over time, where these variables in FARSITE are allowed to vary in time. Within the MTT module, Fuel Moisture Conditioning was utilized to calculate separate dead fuel moistures for each cell within the landscape file based on the topography, shading, initial weather inputs, and the length of the conditioning period. Fuel moisture conditioning requires that weather (.wtr) and wind (.wnd) files are used to provide the baseline climatological starting point for modifying fuel moisture values. For this analysis August 1 through August 15 was selected as the conditioning period for the fuels. Weather and wind input files specific to the representative NFDRS Zone were developed based on 90th percentile threshold obtained from FireFamily Plus. Fuel moisture conditioning produces an output grid for dead fuel moistures that the model accesses for calculating fire behavior outputs, however, the live fuel moisture value is not influence by this process. The MTT feature of FlamMap used ignition locations that occurred between 1992 and 2011 within the analysis areas. The ignition points used in the model were obtained from the Fire Program Analysis data set for historical ignitions across all ownerships. Within each year all ignitions were simultaneously simulated for 24-hours, with the major flow paths from MTT over-laid in GIS to develop a frequency grid of fire spread intercepts on the fuel breaks. The intent of the modeling was to determine how often and where on the landscape ignitions would impact a fuel break under 90th percentile weather conditions.

While the fire behavior outputs are not absolutes and are bound by the assumptions and limitations of data and individual models; the model outputs allow for the evaluation of multiple fires burning under identical conditions on a large landscape. The number of fire incepts with the fuel breaks being

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evaluated was an unbiased indicator of the relative value of individual fuel breaks within the analysis area.

Analysis In order to establish a ranking system to prioritize the relative importance of a fuel break in supporting tactical firefighting operations as well as protecting life and property, potential fire behavior was associated with each of the fuel breaks in the data set.

Within the analysis process fire potential and values at risk were divided into individual analysis elements named Tier1 and Tier 2 respectively. Both Tiers had four associated elements which were rated 0 to 6 based on the criterion of the individual elements. The scores from the individual elements were summed to establish the final “score” in the summary ranking. The ranking of elements within a Tier occurred on what is referred to as the “score card” (Figure 3). The fuel breaks with the greatest summary score are recommended as the highest priority fuel breaks for the forest to maintain on their landscape. Fuel breaks with low overall scores may be considered for removal from the greater fuelbreak system, as based on the analysis they do not greatly influence either tactical firefighting or the protection of priority values at risk.

Beyond establishing priority rankings for the fuel breaks on the Los Padres National Forest, the evaluation also attempts to provide forest leadership with other information which could be used in making informed management decisions regarding fuel break maintenance activities. These elements were evaluated outside of the score card for the fuel breaks and are presented in the evaluation as Tier 3 elements. Tier 3 elements area discussed later in the document while Tier 1 and 2 elements are presented below. Tier 1 Modeled arrival time Using the fuel break locations and the arrival time grids from MTT, GIS was used to group the arrival times into three bins. The arrival time bins are subjective in nature, but represent a method to capture the elapsed time between an ignition and the interaction of a fire with the evaluated fuel break. The bins established for the analysis were 0 to 6 hours, 6 to 12 hours and 12 to 24 hours. Given that the fire simulations were terminated at 24 hours, no evaluation beyond 24 hours was possible.

In order to normalize the data, the number of intercepts was evaluated on a “per square mile” basis. By evaluating intercepts per square mile any bias towards evaluating longer fuel breaks more favorably was eliminated.

The evaluation process used a simple 0-6, scoring criteria for the element. The process used to derive this score involved calculating the number of total fire/fuel break intercepts per square mile for each of the three time bins and ranking the number of intercepts from greatest to least. The rankings were then evaluated based on which mathematical third a ranking score fell into and which one-third percentile group the number of intercepts fell into. Each group was scored on a 1 to 3 basis, with the ranking falling in the upper 1/3 of a group receiving a score of 3, while rankings falling in the lowest 1/3 of a group received a 1. If a fuel break had no fire/fuel break intercepts, the fuel break received a score of zero. Each arrival time bin was scored independently with points added to obtain a final score of 0

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through 6 for each fuel break. The greater the score, the greater the degree of fuel break interaction with the modeled fires. Historic ignitions Based on the Fire Program Analysis data set, the years 1992 to 2012 was evaluated for the number of ignitions which occurred within a defined 1.5 mile buffer of centerline of the fuel break being evaluated. This element was normalized by evaluating the number of ignitions within a square mile of the fuel break buffer. The number of ignitions per square mile was scored 0-3 based on both percentiles and mathematical thirds. These individual scores were added to provide the final scores for this element. The greater the final score, the greater the relative number of fire starts within a square mile of the evaluated fuel break. Historic Burn Frequency Burn frequency evaluates the number of times that historic fires have burned within the 1.5 mile buffer of an individual fuel break. Fire history was obtained from the CALFIRE FRAP database and included all interagency fires for the time period 1992 through 2011. The minimum fire size evaluated in this element was ten acres, which represent the minimum required fire mapping size for federal wildland fire agencies. As a result of this data limit small fires are excluded from the analysis. The burn frequency was normalized on a per acre basis and the use of a 0-3 scoring criteria for both the mathematical thirds and percentiles groups for burn frequency. This methodology produced final scores of 0-6, with larger final scores characterizing a higher burn frequency. Fire Suppression Response Time -Travel from Nearest Fire Station(s) along Connected Roads Response time evaluate the accessibility of a fuel break for ground-based fire suppression resources. Due to the unpredictable availability of aerial firefighting resources they were purposely not considered in this portion of the analysis. Minimum driving response time from the nearest interagency fire station to any portion of the fuel break being evaluated was used to rank this element. Where two stations were closest to different segments of a fuel break the minimum drive time was used in the evaluation. Average driving rates (mph) were based on the road maintenance level of the travel route used by responding fire vehicles and include both NFS-roads and connected roads maintained by other agencies. The Forest Service defines five road maintenance levels:

 Maintenance Level 1 - Basic Custodial Care - 5 mph  Maintenance Level 2 - High Clearance Vehicles – 15 mph  Maintenance Level 3 - Suitable For Passenger Cars – 30 mph  Maintenance Level 4 - Moderate Degree of User Comfort – 45 mph  Maintenance Level 5 - High Degree of User Comfort – 55mph This dataset was interpreted using Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) local road data from ESRI. Travel time was ranked from shortest to longest drive times with the shortest drive time receiving the highest overall score. The use of mathematical thirds and percentile thirds were again used to determine the final overall score of this element. Tier 2 Population Density Population density per square mile of the fuel break buffer was used as a proxy for the potential ability of a fuel break to provide enhanced protection of human life during a wildfire. Population data used in Page | 31

the analysis was obtained from the 2010 US Census, including the 2012 updates with the data normalized by determining the number of people residing within a square mile of the 1.5 mile fuel break buffer. Rankings were from highest to lowest densities and were divided into 6 equal scoring bins, with the highest population density receiving the highest overall score for this element. Homes To evaluate the potential ability of a fuel break to provide wildfire protection to structures, the number of homes within the 1.5 mile fuel break buffer was determined on a per acre basis. Data for this element was obtained from the GIS data hard drive provided Forest Service sponsored Incident Management Teams. A review of the structure data concluded that some non-residential structures may be included in the data, but it is not likely to skew the housing results at the per acre level of the evaluation.

The ranking for this element were based on six equal scoring bins, with the greatest density of homes being awarded the highest overall score. Infrastructure - Communication Sites, Power Transmission and Telephone Lines The ability of a fuel break to provide enhanced protection of infrastructure features was limited to the above-ground features; communication sites, power lines and telephones lines. The source data for these features was obtained from the Department of Homeland Security - National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (HSIP NGIA gold 2013).

The 1.5 mile fuel break buffer area was utilized to evaluate these features. Communication towers were evaluated as points within the buffer, while power and telephone lines were evaluated as miles of lines that occurred within the fuel break buffer. Both elements were normalized using the number of communication sites per square mile and the miles of lines per square mile of fuel break.

Scoring of communication sites and overhead lines was done separately using 0-6 scoring bins for each element. A final score was assigned this element by summing the two individual scores and dividing by two. Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) This element attempts to capture the importance of the WUI as a value at risk and recognizes that fuel breaks can play a role in protecting these values.

The Los Padres National Forest Land Management Plan (LMP) recognizes two fire protection zones in the Wildland Urban Interface; Defense zones and Threat zones.

The element quantifies the portion of a fuel break that lies within either the Defense or Threat zone and assigns either 10, 5 or 0 points for a fuel break based upon its association with these WUI zones. Fuel breaks with more than 50 percent of their land base within the Defense zone received a score of 10 while fuelbreak with less than 50 percent of their land base in the Defense zone but with some portion of their land base within either the Defense or Threat zone received 5 points. A fuel break with no portion of their land base within either the Defense or Threat zone did not receive any points for this element. Tier 3 Five elements are included in the Tier 3 evaluation. While these elements were not included in the priority setting process, these elements do provide important information which could be used to Page | 32

support management decisions regarding the maintenance of the fuel break system as a whole. Tier 3 elements are not considered less important than Tier 1 or 2 elements, however these elements were rated on a relative scale of High, Moderate and Low or on a Presence/Absence basis, rather than receiving numeric scores like Tier 1 and 2 elements. Safety To evaluate a fuel break for its intrinsic safety risk, the time required to evacuate an injured or sick person from the fuel break to the nearest hospital facility was used as a proxy for “safety”.

This element was ranked Low Risk, Moderate Risk or High Risk based on the ground transport time of a sick or injured person to the nearest hospital, based on medical facility data from WFDSS. Both the time to walk an injured person to a road and a waiting ambulance and the drive time of that ambulance to the nearest hospital are considered. Given the variability of walking and driving time, only whole hours were used in the evaluation.

The longest evaluated travel time for any fuel break on the Forest was six hours (Big Pine Fuel Break). Rankings of Low Risk were assigned fuelbreak with less than 1 hour of transport time; fuel breaks with 1- 2 hours transport time were ranked Moderate Risk and those fuel breaks with transport times three or greater whole hours were ranked High Risk.

Existing Vegetation Condition Existing vegetation condition was used as a proxy for the difficulty associated with managing the vegetation on a fuel break. Three density categories were used to establish the ranking of a fuel break; with low density vegetation equating to low maintenance difficulty and high density vegetation equating to difficult maintenance conditions. For the evaluation, a fuel break was considered to have a 600 foot width, 300 feet on each side of centerline. Vegetation imagery accessed through Arc-GIS imagery map services was evaluated for each fuel break in GIS.

Thiessen polygons (equal distance between spatial areas) with ¼ mile points were used to derive the overall vegetation density Figure 2. Thiessen polygon process used rating (Figure 2). Vegetation was ranked by “similar seral to determine vegetation density within stages” across the analysis area with each polygon receiving a the defined fuel break buffers. numeric ranking. The sum of rankings was averaged to obtain an overall value for the vegetation density of the fuel break as a whole. Maintenance Workability (Average Slope) “Workability” is a term used to define the ease that mechanical equipment can operate on a fuel break. For the purposes of this analysis, workability is defined by the average slope of an evaluated fuel break.

Using the average slope of a 10-meter digital elevation model (DEM) over a 600 foot wide fuel break footprint, the value derived from the evaluation is an average of all the 10 meter pixels that make up a fuel break.

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For rating purposes average slopes less than 24 percent are considered to be more easily worked than steeper slopes and therefore were ranked “Low” on the scale of constraints to using mechanized equipment for fuel break maintenance. Average slopes 25 to 35 percent have “Moderate” constraints, while average slopes in excess of 35 percent were ranked as having “High” constraints for the use of mechanized equipment. Forest Land Management Plan guidelines limit the use of mechanized equipment to slopes less than 35 percent. Maintenance Cost Maintenance cost is obtained from the Existing Vegetation Condition value and Workability value combined into a single rating value (Table 4). The output from Table 4 allows for a relative comparison of maintenance costs for the evaluated fuel breaks and is reported using Low, Moderate and High rating adjectives.

Table 8. Estimate cost of maintenance on a per acres basis. Cost provided by fire staff from the Los Padres National Forest

Workability Existing Vegetation Condition (Slope Category) Young/Low Moderate Old/High Low (up to 24%) Low cost- $500-$800 Moderate - $700-$1,500 Moderate - $700-$1,500 Moderate (25-35%) Moderate - $700-$1,500 Moderate - $700-$1,500 High - $1,500-$3,000 High (35% or more) Moderate - $700-$1,500 High - $1,500-$3,000 High - $1,500-$3,000 Source: Greg Thompson, Los Padres National Forest Management Concerns Management concerns represent those resource areas that could be used to inform forest leadership as they move towards implementation of the findings of this analysis. Seven “issue areas” were evaluated for presence or absence within two different fuel break buffer widths. The buffers, 300 feet and 1,000 feet from fuel break centerline were used to capture the relative proximity of these concerns to the fuel break being analyzed. These management concerns are not used within the scoring matrix that support the final priority fuel break rankings, and are presented only as a mechanism to vet potentially important resource concerns to forest managers. Data sources for the seven resource areas are briefly described below. Scenic Byways Data generated by Adaptive Management Services Enterprise Team (AMSET), Cal Trans, Forest Service recreation maps and Forest Service corporate roads and engineering data. Critical Habitat Critical habitat is based on 2014 United States Fish and Wildlife Service polygon data provided the Los Padres National Forest. Campgrounds Represents current Forest Service recreation inventory data. Invasive Plants Data was obtained from the Natural Resource Information System (NRIS), Invasive Plant dataset provided by the Los Padres National Forest.

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Cultural/Heritage Resources The presence or absence of historic and pre-historic resources was provided by Los Padres National Forest Heritage Resource manager, Steve Galbraith, Loreen Lomax (2014). Aerial Retardant Avoidance (ARA) Areas The National Hydrologic Database (NHD 2013) data is combined with the Endangered, Sensitive and Threatened species habitat buffers to define fire retardant avoidance areas on national forests throughout Region 5 of the Forest Service. ARA information was obtained from Los Padres National Forest corporate GIS data. Scoring Matrix The scoring matrix or score card summarizes the outputs from the analysis of the Tier 1, 2 and 3 elements. An example of a score car is shown in Figure 3. The complete pack of score cards and priority rankings for the Main Body and Monterey Ranger Districts of the Forest are found in the Unit Cards provided as part of the Strategic Fuel Break Assessment.

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Figure 3. Sample score card of the Fraizer Park Fuel Break, Main Body analysis area of the Forest.

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