Sierra National Forest - Projects & Plans

Projects & Plans - Kings River Project

INTRODUCTION

The Sierra National Forest, High Sierra Ranger District proposes to implement the Kings River Project (KRP) to restore historic pre-1850 forest conditions across a large landscape. The KRP will reduce the potential for catastrophic insect and fire damage, insure the regeneration of shade intolerant species and provide opportunities for scientific study of these changes in the forest while minimizing the risk to threaten, endangered and sensitive species. The proposal is to use prescribed fire and uneven-aged management to achieve stand conditions that approach those that occurred in the Kings River Project area prior to the removal of fire from the landscape. In addition, it includes a strategy of defensible fuel profile zones (DFPZ) designed within the wildland urban interface (WUI) to reduce the fuels hazard near recreation residences, administrative sites, and campgrounds.

Documents

To ease in download times, we've broken the document into smaller sections for those who may be on slower connections or would prefer to download only specific chapters/portions of the document. All files are in PDF format and require Adobe's free Acrobat player to view. However, several of the maps remain very large. We've listed the sizes of these documents next to their names.

Forest Supervisor's Letter

Errata for Printed Documents ONLY

Errata 1

Errata 2

Cover and Abstract

Summary - Will be posted shortly.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Purpose of and Need for Action

Chapter 2 - Alternatives including the Proposed Action

Chapter 3 - Effected Environment and Environmental Consequences

Chapter 3 may be downloaded intact from the "Chapter 3" link above or in parts from one of the links below. It's a large document and may take several minutes to download on slower connections.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Chapter 4 - Consultation and Coordination

Glossary

References

Record of Decision

Errata for Record of Decision

Appendices & Maps

Appendix A - King's River Project Historical Forest Conditions

Appendix B - Monitoring Plan

Appendix C - Strategy for Historical Forest Restoration Using Uneven-aged Silviculture and Prescribed Fire at the Landscape Scale (2.7 Mb)

Appendix D - Technical Advice Letter USDI

Appendix E - Description of Fuels Reduction, Site Preparation, Reforestation, Release and Other Proposed Treatments

Appendix G - Response to comments.

Appendix GG - Attorney General's Comments on Draft Environmental Impact Statement

Appendix GGG - Comments from the San Joaquin Water Pollution Control District (image file - JPG format)

Appendix GGGG - Comments from the U.S. Department of the Interior (image file - JPG format)

Appendix H - Modeling Existing and Future Vegetation Characteristics, Wildlife Habitat and Fire Behavior Indices in the Kings River Project Area under Three Management Scenarios

Appendix HH - Fisher Rest Use Probability Analysis Methods

Appendix I - Current Stand Conditions for the Initial Eight Management Units

Appendix I2 -Stand Prescriptions and Allocations by Stand

Appendix I3 - Tables by Management Unit of Stand Treatment Sequence for the Proposed Action

Appendix I4 - Stand Treatment Results for the Proposed Action Alternative

Appendix I5 - Stand Treatments for the Reduction of Harvest Tree Size Alternative

e-Appendix - Spotted owl and Pacific fisher animations, noting the change in habitat over eight management units during the analysis period.

Appendix F - Maps