CAL FIRE Reader Ranch Training Grounds NOE Update 2021

CAL FIRE Reader Ranch Training Grounds NOE Update 2021

The project consists of a 466 acre area for CAL FIRE personnel to practice and train. Training activities shall include hoselays, training hikes, rescue drills, hand-line construction, mobile attack, safe helicopter landing, chain saw training (felling and bucking) and vegetative debris pile burning and mastication. Firefighting hand and engine crews will cut brush and trees less than six inches DBH. Trees larger than 6 inches DBH may be cut if approved by a Registered Professional Forester for forest health reasons these trees will be limbed bucked and left in place. Overstory and larger trees will be retained. Minor pile burn creep may occur from burning activities. No work will occur in riparian zones, and no stream crossings will occur from project work. Proposed handline activity will create trails, and brush along existing road edges. Much of the project’s acreage (140 acres-30%) is too steep for equipment and will only see use from personnel practicing the creation of handline or crew hikes for physical training. Small sections of heavily eroded roads may be repaired via grader or dozer. Less than 1 acre of soil will be disrupted for all project work. Some roads and areas on site will be chipped to further prevent erosion. Temporary signage and trailers and/or tents for support units may be present during training activities. Mastication and post-training cleanup may occur more days a year depending on personnel and operator availability. Helicopter landings will be rare and likely be once or twice a year, if at all.

Nevada

Countywide