Shaded Fuel Breaks
Introduction
One of the more common vegetation management practices is the creation of shaded fuel breaks, which are a carefully planned thinning of dense tree cover and the removal of underlying brush. These are placed in strategic locations along a ridge, access road, or other location such as around a subdivision.
The objective of a shaded fuel break is to reduce, modify, and manage fuels within designated areas in order to enhance mitigation efforts in the event of a wildland fire situation. A shaded fuel break does not remove all vegetation in a given area.
A shaded fuel break provides more fire protection and improves forest health. Fuel breaks are generally constructed to separate communities and clusters of communities from the native vegetation, in order to protect both the developing area and the adjacent wildlands. They are most commonly found along ridgelines where fire control efforts are focused.
The most advantageous location and design must be individually determined after considering fuels, topography, weather, exposures and other constructed or planned improvements. Soil stabilization, erosion prevention measures and long-term maintenance requirements must receive thorough consideration during the planning and construction phase.
Shaded Fuel Breaks
A modified shaded fuel break is defined as a defensible location, where fuels have been modified, that can be used by fire suppression resources to suppress oncoming wildfires. Any fuel break by itself will NOT stop a wildfire. It is a location where the fuel has been modified to increase the probability of success for fire suppression activities. Ground resources can use the location for direct attack or firing out. Air resources can use the location for fire retardant drops. The public and fire resources can use the location for more efficient ingress and egress.
Shaded fuel breaks act as strategic "defensible landscape" to reduce fire speed and severity, improve suppression by ground crews and air attack. The purposes of strategic fuel modification are to separate communities or groups of structures from the native vegetation and break up large expanses of flammable fuel into smaller blocks, all with the purpose of reducing fire loss and damage.
A fuel break is a strip or block of land on which the native vegetation has been permanently reduced and/or modified so that fires burning around it can be more readily and safely controlled. Fuels within fuel breaks are reduced in volume through thinning or pruning, or are changed to vegetative types which burn with a lower intensity and offer less resistance to fire control efforts.
Fuel breaks are intended to correct two conditions that have limited the effectiveness of fire control: the difficulty of quick, safe staffing of critical line locations when needed and the need for widening many fire breaks before they can be used effectively. Fuel breaks are not expected to control a fire in themselves, but provide points of access to facilitate control of the flanks and provide possible backfire action in the face of an advancing fire head.
A fuel break system may utilize existing road systems. Most fuel breaks include roadways for vehicle access, or other continuous strips cleared to mineral soil, which serve as a barrier to the spread of fire through the fine fuels or as a line from which to backfire.
A few homes with defensible space may make little difference when the neighborhood is threatened by a wide flame front. While defensible space addresses the need to remove the fuels close to individual structures, vegetation management focuses on programs that address such methods as shaded fuel breaks and other fuel modification practices on the broader landscape.
Shaded fuel break goals:
- Controlling fire behavior by reducing ladder fuels.
- Opening the canopy.
- Treating ground fuels.
- Facilitate fire suppression (ground and air attack).
Examples of shaded fuel breaks in action:
- Cone Fire — pictures of treated and untreated areas after the fire.
- Stevens Fire at Cape Horn 2004 — pictures of flame length and the effect of fuel breaks.
The remains of mastication and chipping are left in place forming a mulch to protect the soil from compaction and erosion. Seedlings will sprout within one season, carpeting the ground and extending roots to retain the soil and feed on the composting material.
Maintenance of the shaded fuel break will be necessary every few years to keep the new vegetation from creating another fire hazard.