Project Area
The 1,922-acre management area for the Wildfire Resiliency Project within the White Mountain National Forest contains a mix of forest types including pine/oak/hemlock, spruce/pine/hemlock, northern hardwoods, and fire-dependent oak/pine stands. The project area is bordered by the Moat Mountain range to the west and residential areas in Conway to the east and has popular hiking, biking, and snowmobile trails that see heavy use. The area is mostly mature forest scattered with wetlands and streams and contains a few areas of younger forest from past harvest treatments (~50 years ago). The forest supports wildlife species including deer, turkeys, bear, and migratory songbirds.This area has a history of frequent fire that has not burned since the early 1900s. The entire project area was analyzed for prescribed fire management and 232 acres are proposed for additional vegetation treatment/ timber harvesting to promote climate resilience and restore fire-adapted communities. Major tree species of interest in the project area include white pine, red pine, pitch pine, and red oak as these species are more fire-adapted and projected to do better in future climate conditions. However, management actions also aim to promote the spruce/hemlock component on site to diversify the forest types represented. Because the eastern edge flanks mostly private land, the wildland-urban interface (WUI) is a primary concern for the treatment area. Smoke control, and firing and holding operation oversight is critical during prescribed fire implementation and fuels mitigation is a key part of the treatment at this site.
Managers are also conducting ongoing research of the fire history and ecology of this site using dendrochronology, pollen cores, and sediment cores to reconstruct fire occurrence on the landscape.
Management Goals
Reduce impacts of undesired wildland fire within the wildland-urban interface (5-10 years)
- Use prescribed fire, timber management, mechanical treatment to reduce overstocked stands and fuel loadings near neighborhoods, high- value resources, and other human-made features.
- Increase public knowledge and understanding of fire occurrence.
- Work with neighboring landowners and other agencies to enhance the prescribed fire program on the landscape (i.e., potential to include acres of private and other agency land).
Return fire to natural communities that have a recorded history of past fire events. (5-20 years)
- Conduct prescribed burns in areas that were historically burned to support the resiliency of these communities which include fire-adapted species, such as pitch pine and red pine.
- Reduce the conversion of these areas to mesic stands through mesophication.
Conduct research on historical fire occurrence in Mount Washington Valley to information management. (Ongoing)
- Integrate the latest science to compare past climate with future climate models when examining historical fire records and future projections to reduce uncertainty.
- Work with Indigenous, university, and agency partners to research past fire management in the region.
Increase stand vigor and enhance species diversity, structural diversity, and forest health. (5 years- Ongoing)
- Use silvicultural treatments to increase the health and vigor of residual trees.
- Maintain and improve species and structural diversity, genetic diversity, refugia for unique species (e.g. pitch pine), to promote the ecosystem’s ability to respond to future disturbances.
- Reduce the potential impact of forest health and climate stressors on the forest including wildfire and wind events, spongy moth, southern pine beetle, red pine scale, elongate hemlock scale, hemlock wooly adelgid, and emerald ash borer.
Climate Change Impacts
For this project, the most important anticipated climate change impacts include:
The winter season will be shorter and milder across the region with less precipitation falling as snow and reduced snow cover and depth.
Forest composition will change across the landscape, including potentially away from fire-adapted species, towards more drought-intolerant species (mesophication).
Warmer temperatures and altered precipitation in the region will interact to change soil moisture patterns throughout the year, with the potential for both wetter and drier conditions depending on the location and season, including reduced soil moisture.
Forest vegetation in the region may face increased risk of moisture deficit and drought during the growing season.
Precipitation patterns will be altered, with projected increases in total annual precipitation distributed unevenly among colder months (more) and warmer months (less).
Many invasive plants will increase in extent or abundance in the region.
Certain insect pests and pathogens will increase in occurrence or become more damaging in the region. Impacts from insect pests and pathogens may be more severe in ecosystems that are already stressed by drought.
Disturbances such as wildfire, flooding, and pest outbreaks are expected to increase in the future.
Challenges and Opportunities
Climate change will present challenges and opportunities for accomplishing the management objectives of this project, including:
Challenges
Increased risk of mortality from disturbances may accelerate the rate of fuel loading to the point at which it exceeds our capacity to treat it (i.e., reduce fuel loads).
There may be a shortened window for prescribed burning during the year due to potential increased drought conditions.
Certain forest pests may become more common or damaging due to climatic conditions. Southern pine beetle may expand its range northward as the climate warms and the fungus which helps control spongy moth (E. maimaiga) may decrease due to drought.
Tree species on site that are not adapted to future climate conditions, wind/fire disturbance, or pest infestations have a higher risk of mortality and may make it more difficult to maintain species diversity.
Increased risk of drought will disfavor species that are not drought-adapted, increasing their risk of mortality. This may decrease species diversity on site and impact structural diversity in unpredictable ways.
Uncertain risk from large-scale disturbances (e.g., fire, wind) make it difficult to prioritize and decide which silvicultural treatments are best suited to facilitate adaptation.
Opportunities
Public awareness of rising wildfire risk with climate change may bolster public support for prescribed fire treatments to reduce wildlife risk.
More southern tree species may expand their range northward into the project area, increasing species diversity.
Fire-adapted species on site are likely to be adapted to more frequent drought conditions in the future.
Adaptation Actions
Project participants used the Adaptation Workbook to develop several adaptation actions for this project, including:
Area/Topic
Approach
Tactics
Fire-adapted ecosystems
Reintroduce prescribed burning to reduce fuel loads and encourage fire-adapted species (10 years).
Create a shaded fuel break (10 years).
Retain all pitch pine on landscape by conducting prescribed burns (10-50 years).
Forest ecosystems
Maintain native softwood stands of white pine and red pine (10 years).
Thin to improve vigor and health of red pine stands.
Use a diversity of timber harvesting prescriptions to enhance variation in forest structure and composition, and balance benefits of carbon storage and sequestration (20-50 years).
Monitoring
Project participants identified several monitoring items that could help inform future management, including:
Regeneration of desired species (oak and pine) in fixed radius plots.
Understory beech mortality using visual estimation and stocking surveys (Timeframe: every 3 years post-harvest).
Collection of tree ring samples in plots to analyze fire history.
Fuel loading in stands on site and in wildland-urban interface near private land using Brown transects.
Visual assessment of changes in vegetation and fuels using photos pre- and post-burn.