For time immemorial Indigenous people burned low-intensity fires across this landscape to manage forests for people and wildlife.

Wildfire suppression actions over the last 100+ years have created dense forests with high wildfire risk. Forests that were once open with widely spaced trees created by regular low intensity fires are now crowded with thickets of small trees no longer regulated by fires…

Removal of fire from the landscape has affected the historic mosaic and patchwork of differing ages and size classes of trees. We now see large swaths of connected forests of similar ages with vulnerability to wildfire, disease, and insects. The dominant tree species we find in the valley such as ponderosa pine, western larch, Douglas-fir, and lodgepole pine are all fire adapted species that rely on the presence of fire.

Check out “A Century of Change in a Ponderosa Pine Forest” to see the evolution of the forest from 1909 - 2015.

Mechanical thinning and selective harvest of certain tree species and size classes are another way to mimic natural wildfire processes and forest stand composition across the landscape while reducing wildfire risk.