Fuel Treatment Effectiveness
Date: 15 Nov 2010
Location Information
Region: 5 Forest: Lassen District: Hat Creek
Wildfire Information (consistent with 5100-29)
Fire Number: USF 05062009000076
Fire Name: Brown Fire, Hat Creek
Complex
Date of Fire Start: Aug 1, 2009 Final Fire Size (acres): 1833
Date When Fire Entered Treatment: Aug 2, 2009
Treated Area Burned (acres): 93 Date Fire Contained: Aug 10, 2009
Fuel Treatment Information and Background:
The Jawbone Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) project was created to provide greater protection to the community of Hat Creek. This mastication and chainsaw thinning project reduced surface and ladder fuels to break up the continuity of vertical and horizontal fuels and reduce the wildfire threat to the community. The Jawbone project included 97 acres of mastication and 335 acres (120 acres completed prior to the Brown
Wildfire) of chainsaw thinning. These treatments were completed to create a Defensible
Fuel Profile Zone (DFPZ), part of a shaded fuel break network completed across the Hat
Creek Ranger District as part of the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group project.
Vegetation material was masticated prior to the Brown Fire and the fuels remained on site. Chainsaw thinning material was piled prior to the fire, but the piles had not yet been burned.
FACTS subunit ID
050653T014000011000
Jawbone WUI - Mastication
050653F014000001000
Jawbone WUI – Hand Thin Pile
Treatment Type and Acres
Treatment Prescription, date completed and total acres
Mastication completed
6/15/2008
97 acres
Chainsaw thin and pile,
120 acre portion of 335 acre area completed prior to fire. Piles unburned.
Acres overlap with Brown
Fire
93 acres
Only embers and small smokes affected treated acres.
Brown Fire, Region 5, Lassen National Forest
1

Fuel Treatment Effectiveness
The Brown Fire was a lightning caused fire that started on Browns Butte above the Hat
Creek Valley during the night of August 1, 2009. The fire was first managed by local initial attack resources as a Type 3 Incident on August 2 nd
and 3 rd
and on August 4 th was assigned to a type II incident team.
Due to an abundance of fire activity on the forest, minimal resources were available in the suppression effort of the Brown Fire. Initial attack of the fire was with one engine, 1 module of a hot shot crew (10 people), air attack and two air tankers. As additional resources became available (two engines, the remaining members of the hot shot crew) they were assigned to the Brown incident.
Weather observations at this time, according to the Ladder Butte RAWS Station, are included in the table below.
This was a large scale lightning event which showered the Lassen National Forest in new starts. The Hat Creek Ranger District alone had detected over 37 new starts, the Brown
Fire included. Resources on the forest had been depleted, communications limited at best, logistics overburdened, and structures threatened throughout the complex. Fire
Managers on the forest needed the Brown Fire contained and its resources made available to new fires.
The completed fuel reduction project was used as a safe anchor point to fight the fire from. Crews were placed in the treated unit and a backfire was implemented in strips from the ridge down to the road. This backfire removed fuels prior to the head of the fire reaching this line of defense. Had the unit not been masticated, it would not have been possible to burn strips of vegetation and slowly burn down from the ridge top due to the heavy brush component. A backfire would still have been attempted had there not been a mastication unit and probably still would have been successful. It may have caused more severe impacts to the resources. Although the back fire was successful, the timing of the back fire was probably a more important factor in success than the fact that it was masticated. The Brown fire took off around 1600-1630, so there were only approximately two hours in the burning period before temperatures dropped and relative humidity came up with nightfall, which helped to make the burnout more successful.
Also a contributing factor in successful suppression was the fact that some of the Brown fire had burned in the Boundary Fire in 1987.
The masticated and chainsaw thin units, although helpful, were not considered critical in the successful suppression of the Brown fire. Stopping the fire along the road in the vicinity of the treated units was critical because there were 16 buildings immediately north of this point (see map below, each building symbol represent 4 buildings).
Brown Fire, Region 5, Lassen National Forest
2

Fuel Treatment Effectiveness
The safe and successful suppression of the Brown Fire can be linked directly to the efforts of the resources involved as well as having a fuels treatment project at the head of the fire. The treated unit provided ground resources with a safe opportunity to reengage the fire and halt its forward progress. Fire behavior was greatly modified as it entered the mastication unit. The Brown Fire was contained after it entered the treatment unit. Spot fires within the chainsaw thinned and piled unit had little hope of gaining momentum and were quickly suppressed. These treatments helped in containing this fire with limited resources.
The unsuccessful aspect of this project was the failure to retain the forest canopy. The mastication project, which rearranged but did not remove surface fuels, did not prevent remaining trees from being killed by the resultant heat during burn out operations.
Conditions When Fire Entered Treatment
Date and Source of Observations: Aug 1, 2009, 15:00 hrs
Ladder Butte Raws Station
ERC (value and percentile): 82 Windspeed and Direction: 10mph @ 193 degrees
Temperature: 88 F RH: 14%
Fuel Model Inside Treated Area: 9 Fuel Model Outside Treated Area: 10
Flame Length Inside Treated Area: 0-2 Flame Length Outside Treatment: 4-6
Fuel Moistures
1 hr : 5 % 10 hr : 6.5 %
Live Fuel Moisture: 100%
100 hr: 7.5
% 1000 hr: 9 %
Measured or Estimated? 10hr and 1000hr were measured, others were calculated.
Brown Fire, Region 5, Lassen National Forest
3

Fuel Treatment Effectiveness
Brown Fire, Region 5, Lassen National Forest
4

Brown Fire, Region 5, Lassen National Forest
Fuel Treatment Effectiveness
Mastication unit after wildfire -
The purpose of the mastication project was to rearrange the ladder fuels and give firefighters an opportunity to utilize the site to fight fire from. A fire crew used the fuels reduction project to implement a back fire and the
Brown Fire did not burn into the community of Hat Creek.
Mastication unit after wildfire -
The mastication project, which rearranged but did not remove surface fuels, did not prevent remaining trees from being killed by the resultant heat during burn out operations.
Although the rate of fire spread was low and allowed fire fighters to stop fire progression, the majority of forest was killed due to excessive heat and long burning period.
5

Fuel Treatment Effectiveness
Additional Documentation
Recommend Additional Documentation? No
Name and Title of Person Completing the Report
Narrative by:
Colin Dillingham
Monitoring Team Leader
Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Implementation Team
Debbie Mayer
District Fuels Officer
Hat Creek Ranger District, Lassen National Forest
Plumas National Forest
Contact
Information
E-mail cdillingham@fs.fed.us dmayer@fs.fed.us
Telephone
(530) 283-7881 (Dillingham)
(530) 336-5521 (Mayer)
Brown Fire, Region 5, Lassen National Forest
6