Jenner Headlands Preserve Vegetation Management Project

Jenner Headlands Preserve Vegetation Management Project

The Jenner Headlands Preserve will create shaded fuel breaks prior to CAL FIRE implementing prescribed burns within them. The planned west project area is 141 acres and approx. 10,300 linear feet and the planned east project area is 124 acres and approx. 11,500 feet, for a total of 265 acres and approx. 21,800 linear feet. Forty three acres in the east fuel break were treated between 2013 and 2015 by mastication and hand crews, and this will be the first shaded fuel break burn unit. Ladder fuel vegetation was thinned from the shaded fuel break, and brush and trees have begun to sprout. The understory burn will maintain the effectiveness of the fuel break by consuming these small sprouts and the masticated material on the ground with low-intensity fire. As the Preserve works towards treating all 265 planned shaded fuel break acres, CAL FIRE will continue to burn the understory as the fuel breaks are created. Within the project area are two small open grasslands that will be burned for training and ecological restoration. Training activities will include firing operations and mobile attack from fire engines. Ecological restoration will be achieved through removal of heavy thatch build-up will promote native grasses and improve forage for browsers. The meadows range in size from one to four acres and will be broadcast using wet lines for control. Bulldozers or other heavy equipment will not be used to create control lines. Mowing and weedeating may occur in the meadows prior to burning operations in order to modify fuel arrangement to reduce fire intensity.

Sonoma