Almeda Post Fire Monitoring

The project is located in southwestern Oregon in the Bear Creek Watershed, a major tributary of the Rogue River. The watershed encompasses the Medford urban area and includes the municipalities of Ashland, Talent, Phoenix, Medford, Central Point, Jacksonville, and Jackson County. Specifically, the project focuses on the area burned by the Almeda fire. In September 2021, the Almeda fire burned 3000 acres and destroyed over 2500 homes and 600 commercial businesses within the cities of Phoenix and Talent in addition to rural homes and farms along Bear Creek from Ashland to Medford. In addition, the fire destroyed native and planted riparian vegetation that helped improve local water quality conditions by providing shade, habitat, erosion protection, and contaminant filtration. An urban fire of this magnitude presents water quality concerns of short-, mid-, and long-term duration. Research shows that the most significant impacts occur 2-5 years post fire. Local resources are close to exhausted, so additional funding is essential to analyze data collected, evaluate trends, and continue critical monitoring activities. Funding would allow us to continue implementing the monitoring program, develop a more formal SAP/QAPP, complete a comprehensive evaluation of data collected, and prepare a final report that can be used locally, by researchers (OSU), and by other communities impacted by urban fires to determine water quality monitoring needs and responses. Partners include DEQ, RRWC, RVCOG, Jackson SWCD, SOU, RVSS, as well as local communities.

The benefits to salmon and steelhead from this project will be an increased understanding of the toxic and other water quality parameter impacts from a large urban fire in close proximity to a fish-bearing stream (Bear Creek) that feeds into a larger, important fish resource stream (Rogue River). The collected data and increased understanding will allow development of improved urban fire response plans, best management plan implementation, and stormwater runoff response that can inform communities in their response to future large or small urban area fires.

In addition, the data collected and analyzed will be used to inform local restoration and rehabilitation efforts.