IVFROG Partners Unite to Restore Ecosystem Resilience

The Illinois Valley Fire Resiliency Oversight Group (IVFROG) is dedicated to achieve clear and measurable outcomes relating to the mitigation of catastrophic wildfire risk to the community and improvement of forest health through related silvicultural activities such as thinning overly dense forest stands and returning low-intensity fire to the landscape at intervals to maintain ecological integrity. IVFROG, having succeeded in terms of operational efficiency over the two-year OWEB Stakeholder Engagement Grant cycle, now aims to increase its capacity to expand project reach to a landscape scale. This project will maximize the performance of the IVFROG through development of a Strategic Action Plan (SAP) and formalized governance documents. These deliverables will be developed cooperatively with a contracted strategic planner and guided by the leadership of the Project Coordinator using input from partners.

Native fish populations in the Illinois River are amongst the most genetically intact in the Pacific Northwest, however, the Illinois River population of Southern Oregon Northern California Coastal (SONCC) Coho Salmon is at high extinction risk, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service’s “Final Recovery Plan for the SONCC Evolutionarily Significant Unit of Coho Salmon” (2014). The Recovery Plan ranks the severity of the top stressors and threats to SONCC Coho. Among the top stresses are the risk of high severity fire, degraded riparian forest conditions and altered sediment supplies. Forests experiencing increased risk of megafires in the Illinois River watershed are a major driver for implementing fuel breaks in strategic locations with regard to spawning habitat. Reducing the stresses and threats by promoting fire-adapted forest restoration is a management best practice. Ideal outcomes are a decrease in overly dense, drought-stressed stands of conifers, further limits on removal of riparian vegetation, and reduced erosion related to forest access roads. IVFROG, through OWEBs Post Fire Recovery grant offering, is successfully addressing already prioritized forest restoration activities in the 2020 Slater Fire footprint which are important for Coho recovery in the East Fork Illinois River watershed. NMFS has prioritized two activities directly related to forest management to protect our salmon population: improving timber harvest practices and increasing large woody debris in streams. These activities can protect water quality and fish habitat by stabilizing soils to reduce sediment inputs, improving shading and large wood recruitment, and increasing food subsidies to the streams. IVFROG’s strategic planning efforts will continue to support these efforts. The benefits to salmon and steelhead are to increase protection of fish habitat and water quality in the Illinois River watershed. Specific actions this technical assistance project intends to accomplish over time are identifying and prioritizing ecological restoration project work on important tributaries such as Deer Creek in Selma and sub-watersheds such as Takelma and Thompson Creek.  Additionally, our work with multiple stakeholders to improve long-range planning in county and city ordinances, to develop watershed specific guidance for managing riparian vegetation and to increase the size of riparian buffers in Coho occupied habitat will be included in IVFROGs Strategic Plan.