|
|
- Info
Wildfire in Florida: Issues of law and forestry practices
| Author: |
Varner, J.M.; Steinau, D.; Ankersen, T.T.; Putz, F.E. |
| Date: |
2001 |
| Periodical: |
Gainesville, FL: University of Florida. 60 p. |
| Abstract: |
This report addresses the relationship between wildfire and forest management in northern Florida, especially its effect on rural communities. Utilizing a case study from Waldo, the site of a devastating 7,000 acre wildfire in 1998, we review forest management, legal, land use planning, and community measures that have the potential to reduce future wildfire risk while maintaining forestry as a dominant land use. Potential management measures include increased use of prescribed burns in adjacent lands, increased use of chemical and mechanical vegetation control, increased harvest of pine straw, increased intermediate stand management, and improved fire management planning and infrastructure. Potential legal and planning measures include fuels management zoning, greater incentives for fuel management, especially prescribed burning, the elimination or reduction of current disincentives to prescribed burning, ecological services subsidies for natural forest management, local ordinances and comprehensive plan language reinforcing prescribed burning and deterring residential sprawl in forested areas, and deterring sprawling development in forested areas. A recommended community-sponsored measure was certification of rural forestland communities in the FireWise Program and fuel management education. This three-tiered approach: forestland management; planning; and community-based measures, will be necessary to protect rural forestland communities while encouraging continuation of forestry as a dominant land use in north Florida. |
|
