Wildland Fire Rehabilitation and Restoration
Postfire rehabilitation, or postfire emergency stabilization, refers to the emergency measures taken to mitigate potential increases in runoff and erosion that can occur immediately after a wildfire. Efforts are often made to protect valuable resources, such as water quality, fragile habitat, houses, roads, and bridges, from the increased risk of flooding, debris flows, and sedimentation. Selected hillslope, channel, and road treatments are usually applied within weeks after a fire and maintained for 1-3 years during the fire recovery period.
Postfire restoration generally refers to the long-term efforts to restore habitat quality, resilience, and productivity. It includes activities such as tree planting, noxious weed control, fuel reduction, and riparian restoration.
Erosion after wildfire is a natural process. Postfire rehabilitation efforts will not stop erosion, but they may be able to reduce the amount of runoff and erosion for some, but not all, storm events. Current monitoring efforts are beginning to determine postfire erosion mitigation treatment effectiveness and delineate the fire effects, rainfall events, and environmental conditions that influence treatment effectiveness. Results from this research, combined with improved erosion prediction tools, will enable land mangers to make better risk-based postfire rehabilitation decisions.
Southeastern US versus the Western US
In the past few years, the increase in number, size, and severity of western US wildfires has also increased the use and costs of postfire rehabilitation treatments. As a result, much of the recent rehabilitation treatment-related research and development has been done in the western US. Given the generally lower potential postfire erosion rates and faster landscape recovery rates, there is less need to use postfire rehabilitation in the southeastern US than the mountainous west. Nonetheless, the processes for deciding where, when, and how to most effectively stabilize a postfire, erosion-prone area is similar for any area, and, as a result, much of the work that has been done in the western US can be applied to postfire rehabilitation in the southeastern US.
Encyclopedia ID: p277
