Where Do We Go from Here
Plans for Monitoring the Plan

What happens once this fire plan is done, in writing? Applegaters will continue to do fuel reduction around their homes; many will get reimbursed for it; some will join in with neighbors and do a little more thinning, and some might organize a telephone tree in their neighborhood if there's a fire nearby this summer. Others will procrastinate, do nothing, and forget about it until another big fire occurs nearby.

Will anyone keep track of how many people actually do some fuel reduction work, how much the federal agencies accomplish, and whether we are actually beginning to see a difference in our fire hazard ratings in a few years? Will anyone take pictures of before and after work sites to see how fast brush grows back and needs thinning again? Will anyone remind us to update our telephone trees next year?

The answer is a big, resounding YES!

The Applegate Fire Plan project team has been meeting with monitoring experts from various agencies to devise a set of projects to track what happens after the fire plan is printed. We've come up with three major areas and four projects around which to request funds. We are looking at a five-to-ten year period of study for these projects, which are outlined below.

Data Gathering

To find out how many acres are being treated for fuel reduction in the watershed as a result of this community fire plan, we will track:

1) the number of owners doing work on private property
2) the number of private acres treated
3) the number of federally-managed acres treated for fuel reduction
4) the areas of the watershed where more work is being done
5) methods being used to treat for fuel reduction.

Our procedure will be to gather data to answer the above and then to report both narratively and on a map every six months for five years. We will report to the community in the Applegator and to the agencies in periodic meetings.

Social Component

To monitor the social aspects of the Applegate Fire Plan, we will endeavor to answer two questions: (1) How did this project affect residents' attitudes and behavior regarding fire danger and hazardous fuels? and (2) How did this collaborative fire plan affect the agencies' ways of working together and of working with private landowners?

To answer these questions we will survey, on an annual basis, a portion of the same group who received the fire plan mailings. By asking the same questions yearly, we will have a good basis of comparison.

The following questions will be asked of the community:

1) Are you familiar with or have you read the Applegate Fire Plan or any of the project newsletters?
2) Has reading any of these heightened your awareness of the degree of wildfire hazards in the Applegate?
3) Has exposure to the Applegate Fire Plan caused you to participate in any emer- gency communications activities, such as a telephone tree or a neighborhood meeting to discuss local resources, evacuation routes, etc.?
4) Did you do any fuel reduction work on your property after learning about the Applegate Fire Plan? If so, what motivated you to do this work? If not, why?

The following questions will be asked of the major agency personnel who participated in the Fire Plan and are still actively involved in land management:

1) Their attitudes regarding interagency projects
2) Their attitudes and interest in private landowner collaborative projects
3) The value of public outreach as a land management tool.

Studies will be taken, compiled and reported annually for 5 years.

Effectiveness

The objective here is to monitor the effectiveness of projects, on both federally managed and privately owned lands in the Applegate, that are designed to reduce fire hazard by managing fuels. This will be done with the following procedures:

1) Establish photo points and plots in each of the two main fuel categories: timber or woodlands and brush fields.
2) Take before and after measurements. Photos should be taken in spring and fall to document seasonal fuel conditions.
3) If prescribed fire is a treatment, use a weather/fuels/fire behavior form to record findings.
4) Some plots will monitor tree growth and survival, changes in canopy, plant community response after burning.
5) A basin-wide GIS overlay will provide an overall look at the effectiveness of reducing fuels buildup and fire hazard ratings.
6) Reporting will occur at 3-5 year intervals, through at least three treatment cycles.

Taken all together, these components will give us a better idea of how effective this fire plan has been in raising the awareness of fire issues in the Applegate, in raising the level of communications between stakeholders and land managers, and in decreasing overall fire hazard ratings.