Kilgore Fuel Reduction Project

Treatment activities will include manual and mechanical treatments to reduce hazardous fuels consisting of over-dense, dead, dying, and diseased shrubs and trees. The Project will enhance the existing oak habitats by removing competing vegetation, and modifying the vegetative composition promote more diverse habitat types and forage opportunities. Treatments are designed and planned to reintroduce prescribed broadcast fire onto the landscape. Manual treatments will include cutting, pruning, chipping, piling, pile burning, prescribed broadcast burning, and herbicide application. Mechanical treatments will include mastication and piling with a track style skid steer, and mastication and piling with an excavator. Other mechanical treatments will include machine piling of vegetation and installation of prescribed fire control lines with a dozer and 6-way blade to remove vegetative material and expose mineral soil with minimal disturbance or displacement of soil. Erosion control structures may be installed where necessary in treatment areas and on access roads with manual or mechanical methods. Vegetation to be removed consists primarily of dense buckbrush (Ceanothus cuneatus), Mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus betuloides), Whiteleaf manzanita (Arctostaphylos viscida) , and Greenleaf manzanita (Arctostaphylos patula). Trees less than 8 inches diameter at breast height (dbh), snags which do not contain cavities, and dying or diseased trees will also be removed. Tree species within the project area consist primarily of Oregon White oak (Quercus garryana), Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), and Western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis). Material generated by treatment activities will be piled and burned or chipped. Prescribed broadcast burns will be implemented following initial treatments.