Trinity Knolls Fuels Reduction

Trinity Knolls Fuels Reduction

The Trinity County Resource Conservation District (The District) plans to implement fuels reduction activities in the form of hand thinning, chipping, lop and scatter, piling, and pile burning treatments on an approximately 5-acre footprint associated with this project adjacent to the Trinity Knolls water tanks and neighborhood in the community of Trinity Center in Trinity County, CA. This project is an integral part of the District’s landscape strategy aimed at protecting Trinity County communities from future catastrophic wildfire events and returning the landscape to a healthy, less hazardous state. Fuel Reduction treatments will be strategically implemented along roadsides, property boundaries, and critical infrastructure to protect the life and property of residents of Trinity Center as well as to provide safe evacuation routes and ease of firefighter access and suppression efforts. The project area is on Sierra Pacific Industries land within the WUI, and our objective is to treat up to 5 acres over a 1-year period. Topography is mostly gentle (15%-45%) throughout much of the project area and elevations range from approximately 2500’-2900’. The prescription includes hand thinning of small diameter (less than 10” DBH) conifers and shrubs that are adjacent to habitable structures, critical infrastructure, and/or roadways and driveways. Emphasis will be placed on eliminating the continuity of surface and ladder fuels. Some sub canopy trees may be removed to break up vertical continuity to dominant trees as well as to raise the canopy base height, which will reduce future fire intensity. Cut materials will bucked and carried to the chipper whenever feasible and then chipped and broadcasted on site. Any remaining material that cannot be chipped will be piled or lop-and-scattered on site. Burn piles will be burned during the following winter season.

Trinity Center

Trinity

Northern California

Trinity