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Figure 2. Fires of Interest and watersheds affected or in proximity to those fires.

Strategy 2. Forest/Upland Restoration and Management

Activities under this strategy refer largely to work designed to improve or sustain terrestrial
environments. Projects may be developed at a broad scale to restore ecosystems such as grasslands,
chaparral, or forest stands, but depending on the locations most impacted by the fires and identified by
USFS staff or through Strategy 1 assessments, projects may be designed to directly focus on the recovery
of individual species of interest to the ANF such as gray pine or live oak.

Seed Collection/Propagation - Changes in fire regime, including increased intensity or frequency, may
decimate standing vegetation and the seed bank within the soil. As high intensity fires become more
frequent, burned landscapes become more susceptible to converting from diverse native vegetation
communities to monocultures dominated by invasive plants. Seed collection and propagation is
therefore important to ensuring a source for conducting restoration. The ANF has a particular need to
collect and propagate seed from native chaparral, coastal sage, live oak, gray pine, and big cone
Douglas-fir.

Revegetation - In order to restore forest and upland environments, replanting native species where
native vegetation communities once existed may be necessary where natural recovery processes have
been delayed or altered as a result of wildfire or other stressors. Vegetation communities of particular
interest to the ANF are chaparral, coastal sage, live oak, gray pine, and big cone Douglas-fir.

Prescribed Burn - Prescribed burns may help some areas replicate the natural process of wildfire, which
reduces fuels, removes competitive invasive species, promotes germination of fire adapted species such
as big cone Douglas-fir, and increases diversity and age structure in vegetative environments. On the
ANF, prescribed burns may have particular applications in maintaining riparian corridor and oak grove
regeneration.

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