Res-2018-158 Wildfire Protection Plan

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The eastern Cascades of Washington State is an incredibly diverse and complex ecoregion that supports abundant fish and wildlife, a wide range of forest communities, and provides an array of critical ecosystem services including water, wood products, forage for grazing, and recreational opportunities. Ranging from the crest of the Cascades down to the shrub- steppe of the Columbia Basin, the variability in the forests and rangelands of the east Cascades are driven by the interplay of topography, precipitation, soils, and disturbances such as fire, insects, flooding, and wind (Hessburg et al. 1999; Stine et al. 2014). Similar to forests across western North America, a history of wildfire suppression , intensive timber harvesting, and grazing throughout the 20th century has caused widespread degradation of forest, rangeland, and stream habitats and increased the risks of uncharacteristically severe wildfire (Hessburg et al. 2000; Bunting et al. 2002; Lehmkuhl et al. 2013; Hessburg et al. 2015). The resulting shifts in tree species composition and increases in forest density have resulted in decreased resilience of forests to drought and fire for many of the region's forests, and this occurs at a time when climate change is projected to increase drought stress and wildfire risks (Hessburg et al. 2000; Haugo et al. 2015; Littell et al. 2010). Twentieth century forest management also led to the building of extensive forest road networks which have dramatically altered watershed hydrology, increased sediment delivery i nto streams, reduced floodplain functioning, and fragmented aquatic habitats (Bisson et al. 2003; Rieman et al. 2010). These aquatic habitat stressors have and will continue to be further exacerbated by the increases in stream temperatures and decreases in snowpack as a result of climate change (Mote 2003; Mantua et al. 2009; Isaak et al. 2010, 2012). Across western North America and within the eastern Cascades, the challenges currently facing our forested ecosystems from past management and future climate change have prompted a wide scale shift in land management to focus on "ecological restoration" (Rieman et al. 2010; Gaines et al. 2012; USFS 2013; Hessburg et al. 2015). Ecological restoration is defined as "the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed" (SER 2004). However, efforts to conserve and restore the ecosystems of the eastern Cascades are further complicated by a diverse patchwork of private, state, tribal, and federal land ownership, each with different forest management emphases and objectives. In response to these challenges the Community Wildfire Protection Plan 40 September 2018