WILDFIRES AND THE NATIONAL PRESCRIBED FIRE PAUSE

The 2022 fire season was an active and devastating one early on for some in the Klamath region The most impactful fires and their extent are shown in the maps below and included the McKinney (60,138 acres), Yeti (7,886 acres, left of McKinney), and Lightning Complex (29,815 acres). Others fires included the Mill (3,935 acres) and Mountain (11,690 acres); with at least 17 and 3 homes burning in each, respectively. The McKinney Fire caused the most damage to human lives and livelihoods with four lives and 87 homes lost. The image directly below was produced by Basho Watson Parks and posted on the Salmon River and Orleans Complexities Facebook page conveys the striking reality of how much significant fire the region has had over the last three consecutive seasons, including 2022.

In August, the U.S. Forest Service's 90-day prescribed fire pause ended just weeks before the Karuk WTREX start date Significant trust between landowners, tribal partners, CAL FIRE and other partners once again provided an opportunity to conduct controlled burns on private and tribal fee lands for both WTREX and KTREX. Local Six Rivers NF fire managers worked through the seven additional procedural requirements once the pause was lifted on the federal/public lands side, but were not able to get approvals in time for WTREX and KTREX. The Six Rivers NF was the first Forest to conduct a prescribed burn after the pause in Region 5, however these new requirements place additional work burdens on our FS partners at a time when we need to be decreasing these regulatory hurdles and getting to scale WKRP partners will continue to work closely with our FS partners to increase the scope and scale of prescribed burning despite the additional procedural steps to burning on public lands.