The Willamette National Forest will use the funds to implement fuel breaks on boundaries of potential operational delineations.
The U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Region, Willamette National Forest will receive a total of $14,700,000 to implement fuel breaks on boundaries of potential operational delineations (PODs) as part of Wildfire Crisis Strategy implementation. The Forest was chosen based on opportunities to work with industry partners to accelerate vegetation management projects that integrate fuels reduction objectives and commercial treatments.
PODs are planning units that are defined by boundaries such as roads or natural features that can be used as control lines in a wildfire. Working with industry partners, these investments, made possible with Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Law funding, will fund mechanical treatments that will improve opportunities for fire containment, prescribed fire, and firefighter safety while supporting local milling infrastructure.
Overgrown forests, a warming climate, and a growing number of homes in the wildland-urban interface, following more than a century of rigorous fire suppression, have all contributed to what is now a full-blown wildfire and forest health crisis.
The Forest is strategically identifying projects that aim to mitigate the threat of wildfires to essential resources, including communities, infrastructure, and nearby private lands. These efforts will enhance and augment fire containment boundaries and existing features.
The projects will involve collaborating with communities, landowners, and industrial partners to establish a unified strategy that will reduce the risk of wildfires to critical values within and adjacent to the Willamette National Forest.
“We’re looking forward to building on existing partnerships and creating new ones to do this work in areas and in ways that benefit people,” said Dave Warnack, Willamette National Forest Supervisor.
“Together we will strategically identify and implement work to protect communities, homes, infrastructure, and industrial forests through the use of fuel breaks and PODs, tools that gives us the best opportunity to protect the things that are most important on our landscapes.”
Watch this video below to learn how PODs works:
Learn more about the Forest Service work to confront the wildfire crisis.
Source: USDA Forest Service