Nevada County

Prescribed Fire News

September 2024 | NCRCD.org/Prescribed-Fire

Greetings!

Building upon last year’s Prescribed Fire Education Program at the RCD, we are launching a newsletter to gather all things RX Fire for you in one place.



In each issue we will cover current events, upcoming courses and workshops, and feature a short informative piece on different aspects of prescribed fire. Finally, we will share success stories about all the great work being done in our growing community of prescribed fire practitioners in the county. 

CAL FIRE Grant Funds Goat Grass and Scotch Broom Fuel Reduction

The RCD was recently awarded a Wildfire Prevention Grant by CAL FIRE to use prescribed fire to reduce fuel hazard on two Nevada County ranches impacted by highly flammable invasive grasses and scotch broom.


Read More

Upcoming Events


Wildfire season is still upon us and prescribed burning is prohibited, but it's a good time to learn and prepare your land for when CAL FIRE opens up the burn season in late fall or winter. Once it’s safe and legal to burn, our workshops will focus on hands-on experience at an actual prescribed burn site.

RX Fire Advisory Visit Program

Interested in having our team assess your property for prescribed burn readiness? If you think your property would benefit from a prescribed burn, and you have more than one acre, sign up for a FREE Prescribed Burn Advisory Visit. 


Learn More

Reduce Fire Hazard | Restore Forest Health and Resilience | Enhance Native Plants

The RX Fire Team @ NCRCD

Welcoming Jennifer Rain Crosby

We are thrilled to have Jennifer Rain Crosby joining us as the new RX Fire Program Community Outreach Coordinator. She is a long-time resident of Nevada County. Since 2021, Jennifer has been fire manager on a hand crew specializing in understory fuels management. She is passionate about prescribed fire and creating a culture of fire resiliency in Nevada County.


Jennifer joins the Prescribed Fire Team highlighted below. We look forward to meeting you in person at an upcoming event, but until then please feel free to connect with Jennifer directly on all things RX Fire.

CONTACT US

Nathan Alcorn

Program Director and prescribed fire operations

Emma DiClementi

Conservation Program Manager and prescribed fire practitioner

Jo Ann Fites-Kaufman

NCRCD Board Member, retired US Forest Service Fire Scientist, and state-certified Burn Boss (CARX)

Good Fire Success

Park Fire in Butte County

Butte RCD has had an active, community-oriented prescribed fire program for several years. Neighbors and the RCD gathered together on multiple workdays to help community members prepare for and conduct prescribed burns in their defensible space. It paid off and in the Park Fire, three of the homes that had prescribed fire and other treatments in the defensible space survived the fire.


According to David Mitchell, the Butte RCD Good Fire Coordinator, "Butte PBA works closely with landowners in Cohasset. This season we put fire on the ground on three properties with owners very dedicated to the restoration of natural systems including fire. All three homeowners were fortunate to have their houses spared in the Park Fire. While correlation is not causation, the way the wildfire interacted with the extensive prescribed burn areas is quite compelling. Houses were left standing and trees were still green while below these areas houses were burned down and forests experienced nearly 100% mortality."

Good Fire = Safe, legal, responsible, beneficial, low intensity fire

Earlier this year in Nevada County, there were multiple prescribed burns applied to improve defensible space. After thinning trees or crown fuels, removing ladder fuels (small trees, lower branches, tall shrubs), and heavy fuel accumulations, surface fuels that remain still pose a problem. All of the accumulated needles, leaves, and branches, called the surface fuels, can readily catch on fire from embers—the small burning pieces that can travel miles ahead of a wildfire.


Prescribed burning is one of the most effective tools for reducing these surface fuels. Low intensity fire can consume these fuels and at the same time release nutrients back into the soil for the trees and plants. It also makes it easier for rain to reach the soil, a necessity for healthy forests.


Below are three examples of successful burns in Nevada County, including two from NCRCD workshops and another we helped out at in the Lower Colfax Firewise Community.

Nevada County RCD Prescribed Fire Workshop in the You Bet Firewise Community

Nevada County RCD Prescribed Fire Workshop in the Salmon Mine-East Sages Firewise Community

Neighborhood group prescribed burn, led by Dario Davidson in the Lower Colfax Firewise Community


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