Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl - DRAFT

percentages would have been historically, but it is expected that they mighthave been even more biased toward the lower damage classes.The effects of fire management in the Klamath subregion was then a 70-yearperiod of declining fire acreage, with burned areas probably biased to the highscorch level, followed by recent experience with larger fires of more variableseverity, due to their simultaneous occurrence and lack of fire control forces toimmediately control them.Management effects on wind are similar in type to the West Cascades subregionbut less extensive due to dissected terrain. The forest landscape has beenfragmented by clear-cutting, and loss to windthrow occurs around uncut edges(Stone et al. 1969). However, because of dissected terrain of the subregion andthe inland nature of much of it, windthrow owing to management activities hasbeen relatively limited in extent.In the Klamath subregion forest management, including clear-cutting and firesuppression, has had a major impact on insects and diseases. Defoliator andbark beetle populations have increased. Armilku-a, P. weirit and H. annosumalso have increased. Specific diseases such as Phytophthora lateralis root rot ofPort Orford cedar and black stain root disease of Douglas-fir have been dramaticallyincreased by forest management (Baker 1988). Infections appear tobe worse along roads for both of these diseases. It is suspected that roadmachinery carries spores of P. ateral is from infected to noninfected areaswhere they spread in runoff and soil water. Thinning has caused an increasein black stain root disease.C. Likely Outcome of a Total Protection Strategy inDCAs Over the Next CenturyFireTotal protection in the context of this section of the report is defined as "handsoff"management within designated conservation areas for the next 100 years.The recent experience in this subregion with large, uncontrolled fire events islikely to continue with a total protection strategy for DCAs. Fuels will onlybecome more continuous with successful protection, and multiple fires arelikely to recur because of the nature of lightning events in the subregion. Totalprotection should result in 1) a continued occurrence of isolated fires whichburn with relative high severity, being controlled when fire weather shiftstoward more moderate conditions, and 2) continued large fire "events" withmultiple fires of many thousands of acres. These fires will overwhelm controlforces and exhibit variable severity, with a skew over time toward the higherdamage classes. A total fire protection strategy is likely to be unsuccessful,over the next 50 to 100 years, in providing protection against catastrophicdisturbance in DCAs.If timber harvest activity is undertaken in DCAs, fire management simulations(Hardy 1983) suggests that fuel treatment will be effective in reducing futureburned area, although it may be cost-inefficient. Hardy's fuel treatmentoptions were YUM yarding (8 inches x 10 feet or 6 inches x 6 feet), and his'base case" for wildfire size distributions (1950-80) did not include either theearly 1907-18 fires or the 1987 fires, making fuel treatment compared to the"base case" hard to justify economically. A survey of partial-cut and uncutstands burned by the northern California fires of 1987 suggests that cuttingwas associated with increased fire severity levels, but fuel treatment within cut459