Fire and Water: Restoring Arizona's Forests

Wildfires in the West are getting bigger and hotter and often burn out of control for weeks at a time. Large-scale fires threaten the forest itself and all the things we depend on the forest to provide. Fire & Water: Restoring Arizona’s Forests, a documentary that aired on Arizona PBS on Dec. 7, 2016, details how Arizona is bridging long-standing divides to unite federal land managers, environmentalists and the timber industry to restore our public lands and protect our water supply. Produced by Salt River Project.

[@cacatr4495]

Thank you for posting this.

[@jimhughes5255]

Forest can be brought back. And we are getting better and better and better and better at it.

[@AllSectorsHearThis]

What about water harvesting earthworks like contour ditches. Gabions and Check dams in gullies to catch spread and soak water higher up in the landscape. These measures would also help manage flash floods and catch ash from forest fires to prevent it from settling in reservoirs. There is lots of information on you tube. In India this work is done by communities by hand.

[@b_uppy]

I just posted something similar, think they need to actively identify weak points besides just looking at the trees themselves. There is a persistent blindness that refuses to consider other solutions. Brad Lancaster has great books on creating rainwater harvesting earthworks (latest edition is best) that describe a ton of techniques to allow water to seep in. It follows the the principle of slow, sink, spread.

[@lauramaskell1653]

Sand dams in washes would help to slow down the flow of water and also help to recharge ground water.

[@b_uppy]

@@lauramaskell1653 Sand dams are materials-intensive that require moving concrete. They are often prone to failure as well due to design flaw. Better to use earthworks and other techniques using on-site materials and perhaps heavy or semi heavy equipment to supplement. Look up Brad Lancaster's books on Rainwater Harvesting in Drylands. Latest editions are best.

[@Winterascent]

14:06 not practical. Manage the forests as ecosystems. There is no need to then micro-engineer structures in response.

[@b_uppy]

What about identifying problem sites and doing gully repair and other rainwater harvesting earthworks?? Besides thinning you can rehydrate dryer areas this way through more active management. If you can thin to manage land, you can harvest rainwater. Harvesting rainwater raises the water table and also reduces down stream flooding.

[@b_uppy]

@ProtoTribal Brad Lancaster cites a lot of ways to slow, sink and spread water in his books on rainwater harvesting earthworks. Many sites lack rocks but there are other ways to heal the landscape and add mitigation.

[@leroybabcock6652]

good stuff

[@lauramaskell1653]

Reintroducing Beaver to rivers and creeks would also help.

[@SimpleDragon1328]

UWSP Fire Crew brought me here.

[@shannonalaminski2619]

Step one: eliminate beavers. Step two: complain about loss of water, loss of good soil, increase in fires, more erratic weather...

[@hina6168]

Hi