Members: Jenna Deibel, Mary Opperman, John Shelk, Tom Casselman, Gayle Casselman, Thomas Stokely, Janet Hutchison, Mark Maboll, Cynthia Harper, Dawn Alexander
Agenda Overview: John made a motion to approve the August minutes with a few corrections. Tom Casselman 2nd the motion. Motion passed. Financials- Invoices paid from New/Unknown for website, and Dawn Alexander
Prescribed Fire ZOA Presentation: Thomas Stokely- Ochoco Forest Restoration Collaborative Prescribed Fire Zones of Agreement- Thomas gave a presentation on our latest Zone of Agreement for Prescribed Burns. The document focuses on enhancing the use of prescribed fires in the Ochoco National Forest. It outlines challenges like burn windows, air quality, and public perception, and emphasizes increasing burn frequency, size, and quality. It advocates for mosaic burns, cultural integration, adaptive management, and collaborative efforts to promote forest health and resilience.
Zones of Agreement Recommendations: Pace- greater frequency of burning across broader biophysical and weather conditions. Scale- advance work towards larger, contiguous burn blocks, Quality-broader condition and larger blocks that result in great variation in fire effects and diversity of forest structures.
Overstory and Understory Objectives: Mosaic burns- mixed fire effects that enhance diversity of vegetation conditions. Habitat, invasives, outcomes for values prioritization of fire to enhance resource values. Fir mortality- strategic thinning and burn implementation to conserve non-fir species. Climate-adaptable fire management- future range of variation, aggressive implementation, climate adaptation frameworks.
Tribes, Cultural Values, Usual and Accustomed Areas- Acknowledgement- OFRC and ONF support for CTWS engagement and fire stewardship of ancestral lands. Consultation with CTWS for burn planning and implementation usual and accustomed areas Engagement with CTWS fire professional and Tribal member in burn implementation.
Landscape-Level Planning- Prioritization- analytics and tools to focus use of fire for enhancing range of values across landscape. Condition-based NEPA- planning that emphasizes flexibility in implementation based on specified current or desired future conditions. Potential Operational Delineations (PODS) strategic unit layout at stand and landscape scales and mapping of values affected by fire.
Monitoring and Adaptive Management- Pre- and post-burn monitoring- efficient and repeatable protocols to inform adaptive management. Adaptive management- use of frameworks and indicators to determine success and interventions into the future. Information dissemination- sharing learned information to public through partnerships.
All Hands, All Lands- engagement of ONF and OFRC in shared learning, resources, and management across land ownerships. Cross-boundary burning, planning and implementation
Public Outreach and Education- Burn notice- ample notice to public in advance of burn days. Smoke- burn notice and other outreach about smoke impacts. Community events- congruent messaging of RX fire with fire prevention comms. Collaborative engagement- work with OFRC in shared messaging. Constant messaging- talk about it all the time.
Smoke Management- public health communications- as above, continue working with agencies/orgs in Central OR about communicating measure to mitigate public health impacts.
National Prescribed Fire Guidance- Recommendations and guidance from the USFS Chief to reduce future escapes should not be a barrier to burn implementation, but used to increase pace, scale, and quality.
Thomas thanked the rest of the committee for all their help with this project. OFRC: Jenna Deibel, Tom Casselman, Gayle Casselman, Tim Deboodt, Kit Dickey, Amber Blanchard, with USFS input from Kevin Kewon, Jona Ensley, and Monty Gregg, and review by Pet Caligiuri (TNC).
Waiting until there is some more input from the Forest Service and then we will vote on the document at a full group meeting.
Chairman, Vice Chairman Elections: Discussion on when we want to hold elections, January or February? Dawn will send out an email to see if people want to still be on the mailing list.
Monitoring/Outreach: The Foundation was able to finish the contract and Jill can now send in invoices of what she has been working on. They have extended the contract until Dec. 2025 so that gives her another field season based on the fires.
Jenna presented to the Ochoco Resource Advisory Committee our Title II grant. Fingers crossed that we receive this grant.
Forest Service Updates: No one was in attendance from the Forest Service
Member Outreach: Jenna has written a draft of an op-ed letter that we can put in the paper and distribute so we can work on getting more members to join the collaborative.
Jenna also contacted the Deschutes Collaborative Forest Project (DCFP), Blue Mountains Forest Partners (BMFP), and High Desert Partnership (HDP) to discuss potential for co-collaborative response for Malheur Lumber shut-down and general decline of the eastside timber market over last several decades. She met with Jacob Fritz (DCFP), Mark Webb (BMFP), and Aaron Johnston (HDP) by Zoom. They agreed that we would have a stronger response coming from several collaboratives as opposed to just one. The intention is to write a letter that will go in our respective local publications. Jenna will write it for the 4 of them to review and then after editing will bring to our group for approval. The letter will have an educational outreach focus about the impact of mill closures on our economy, the ability to restore our landscape, and important community values such as wildfire safety, recreation, and wildlife. It will have an ask at the end (i.e. call your local representatives or talk to your neighbors about this issue) but unsure exactly what at this time. The ask will be determined once a first draft of the outreach section is complete.
COFS Foundation Update: Mentioned COSSA Oct 3rd and the second climate change workshop on Nov. 6th.
Website Update: no report this month
General Sharing:
Jenna- Big Summit Sale wondering if the Forest Service going through with it, how it will all play out?
Janet and Mary went to Vickie Dunaway’s son’s memorial service. Was a very nice service with many in attendance.
Cynthia: Concerns about the forest service plans and how soon looking at an analysis in the burn areas from this summer.
The meeting was adjourned at: 3:15 pm.
