Post fire management program after the December 2010 fire Mt. Carmel forest, Israel

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1 April 11, 2011 Post fire management program after the December 2010 fire Mt. Carmel forest, Israel Naama Tessler *1,, Natan Elbaz 2, Didi Kaplan 2, Yehoshua Shkedy 2,Ben Rosenberg 2, Eyal Cohen 2, Lea Wittenberg 1 and Noam Greenbaum 1,3 1 Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa Israel Israeli Nature and National Parks Protection Authority, 3 Am Ve Olamo., Jerusalem, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Haifa, Haifa Israel *ntessler@geo.haifa.ac.il Wildfires are a significant agent that changes the open landscape, natural forest and planted forest in Israel (Ne'eman and Perevolotsky, 2000). Forest fires are a common phenomenon in Israel during the summer and the transition seasons; and are characterized by high spatiotemporal unpredictability in terms of occurrence and damage. In the last decades there is an increase in the number of forest fires, which produces a rising interest in forest management. Major forest fires in Mediterranean environment occur periodically; having complex affects on geomorphological - ecological processes, due to the complexity of landscape structures as to differential responses of such systems to various types of fires regimes. Fire history in Israel show that during more than 30,000 fires have occurred in the open landscape of Israel and in each year almost 1,000 fires happen, most of the fires are smaller than 100 ha (Tessler et al., 2010) (Fig. 1). 1

2 Fig. 1: Dispersion map of Israeli forests fires by geographic regions in , density Sq/Km Mt. Carmel is an isolated mountain ridge, rising from the northern Mediterranean Sea shore of Israel to a height of 500 m above sea level. The Mediterranean type climate is characterized by dry and hot summers and rainy winters (Wittenberg et al., 2007). Fires on Mt. Carmel, as in other parts of the Mediterranean basin, are caused mainly by human activity and it has been playing an ecological role. Recent fire history indicates that since the 1960's there is a general increase in the number of fires and the total area of burnt regions in the Mediterranean basin (Pausas and Vallejo 1999). In last 3 decades more than 600 smaller fires occur in the Carmel area and 10 fires were larger than 100 ha (Tessler et al., 2010) (Fig. 2). 2

3 Fig. 2: Fire history on Mt. Carmel , *CZA- Fire data base on information that was collected in the Centrel Zionist Archives in Jerusalem (Tessler et al., 2010) In 2-6 December 2010 the largest forest fire that was ever recorded in Israel occurred on Mt. Carmel. Right after the fire the Israeli ministry environment protection nominated a special Committee to formulate recommendations for the management of the Carmel forest. The head of the Committee is Prof. Avi Perevolotsky. The Committee nominates small subcommittees of scientists, experts from the agriculture ministry and management people from the Israeli Nature and National Parks Protection Authority (INPA) and from the Jewish National Fund (KKL). The subcommittees deal with some main subjects such as: vegetation management; fuelbreaks lines; grazing; thinning and pruning. All subcommittees had to send first conclusions to the main Committee. The next step will be to extract from those conclusions and recommendations an active management program (Perevolotsky, 2011). 3

4 An emergency response survey was made immediately right after the fire to evaluate the immediate damage and determine the recommended post-fire management. The process includes: GIS mapping of fire boundary and the fire severity, which was assessed by ground survey of soil and ash color, as also by the intensity of the remained vegetation and GIS mapping using aerial photography; a list of human and property damage; a list of ecological and geomorphological damage based on field survey of the burnt areas, mapping the burnt basins, soil-vegetation surveys, especially in areas with previously fires history, emergency management treatment respond in risk areas. The mapping shows more than 2530 ha burnt in the 2010 December fire (Fig. 3). Fig. 3: December 2010 Mt. Carmel fire map 4

5 The fire analysis shows that the fire covered an area equals to all other fires that occurred in the last three decades in the Carmel region. The fire burnt areas that have been previously burnt, while 26% of the area was burnt twice and 3% of the area was burnt for the third time (Fig. 4). Fig. 4: Recurrent forest fire on Mt. Carmel (Tessler et al., 2011) From the eco-morphological point of view and visual impression, most of the ecological damage is connected to the natural and the planted forest of Pinus. In those areas the fire severity was higher. Two main river basins were affected with moderate-high severity fire, when 38% of the Oren Basin was burnt in the fire. Field surveys started immediately after the fire and showed changes in soil chemical properties, soil erosion, water repellency, vegetation cover etc. 5

6 Previous studies (Ne'eman and Perevolotsky, 2000; Ashkenazi, 2004) suggest that management response must be referred to previous fire history (Wittenberg et al., 2007) and to fire severity (Neary et al., 2005) in the area and to start management interfere inside the burnt areas only two years after the fire (Ne'eman and Perevolotsky, 2000; Ashkenazi, 2004). From the social point of view, 44 people were killed, 250 housing units severely damaged, of which 180 houses were identified with partial injuries. The initial damage to communities and property was estimate in million and 24 million damage to the forest roads and urban infrastructure. The first emergency management treatment was: care for safety and property settlements, i.e. silvicultural treatment such as dangerous burnt tree felling along the main roads itineraries; primary care of forest roads; open safe access to touring roads; close parking lots; routing visitors to open parking; infrastructure rehabilitation; propaganda and establishing an interdisciplinary committee for preparation of pre-rehabilitation program. Preliminary work plan include preparation of 5 years management program to the non-burnt forest areas in order to decrease the fire hazard (Fig 5). 6

7 Fig 5. Forest management program for Mt. Carmel region This work includes field surveys and mapping of old Pinus Halepensis Mill. trees, occurred prior to the plantations of Pinus Halepensis from western origin. Those surveys are important to preserve Mt. Carmel's, Pinus Halepensis original forest, most of it is natural. Other main themes of the new program issues are: new fuel-break areas around the urban settlement; opening roads and trails; thinning treatment in the "green areas" that have been previously burnt but didn't burn in the 2010's fire. Another issue of the management plan relates to preparation of a working plan for the burnt area. One of the important guidelines now is to examine and monitor recovering vegetation and to implement active management only in hazardous areas: silvicultural felling of live and burnt trees will continue in all main roads and around the urban places, as also near some infrastructure elements, such as electric lines. All other treatments will start only after 7

8 finishing the damage assessment and after preparation of a management program for the short and for the long term period. It is considered that burnt trees will be cut and removed only 2 years post fire and will be limited to easy access areas, non-steep areas, up to 50 m from roads and in fire-hazardous locations. Thinning of Pinus seedlings will take place 5 years post fire in accordance with the management plan of the arboreal flora of the Carmel (Ashkenazi, 2004.) Almost four months after the fire, a management program is now taking its route the Committee has designated for managing and rehabilitating the post-fire Carmel s ecosystem is about to conclude its task. From both anthropogenic and eco-morphological aspects the rehabilitation process will last for a long period. 8

9 Reference Ashkenazi, S., Management of the Arboreal Flora of the Carmel with emphasis on the management of Pinus halepensis Mill. Hakeren Hakayemet LeIsrael (JNF) and Israel Nature and Parks Authority (NPA). Neary D.G., Ryan K.C., and DeBano L.F., 2005 (Ed). Wildland fire in ecosystems; effects of fire on soil and water. USDA Forest service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, general technical report RMRS-GTR-42-volume 4. Ne'eman, G., and Perevolotsky, A The management of burned forests in Israel. In: Ne'eman, G., and Trabaud, L (Ed), Ecology, biogeography and management of Pinus Halepensis and Pinus brutian forest ecosystems in the Mediterranean basin. Leiden: Backhuys Publishers, 412p Pausas, J.G. Vallejo, V.R The role of fire in European Mediterranean ecosystems. In: Chuvieco E. (Ed.), Remote sensing of large wildfire in the European Mediterranean basin, Springer-Berlag, pp Perevolotsky, A Preliminary recommendations of the Committee of management recommendations for post December 2010 fire on Mt. Carmel, Israel. Ministry of Environment, Israel (Hebrew). Tessler, N., Greenbaum, N., and Wittenberg, L Soil and vegetation resilience after recurrent forest fires in Mt. Carmel, Israel. Final report for Israeli Nature and National Parks Protection Authority, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, The University of Haifa, Israel (In Hebrew).. Tessler, N., Greenbaum, N., and Wittenberg, L Forest fire hazard in the biosphere reserve of Mt. Carmel. Final report Served to UNESCO Israel, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, The University of Haifa, Israel (In Hebrew). Wittenberg, L., Malkinson, D., Beeri, O., Halutzy, A., and Tessler, N., Spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation recovery following sequences of forest fire in a Mediterranean landscape Mt. Carmel, Israel. Catena 71: