Pine barrens commission airs plans to reduce wildfire risk in Flanders, environmental activist raises concerns

Contractors hired in 2013 by the Central Pine Barrens Joint Planning and Policy Commission  to assess and inventory the pine barrens forest and perform certain maintenance services over a five-year period yesterday outlined plans for reducing wildfire risk in the Sarnoff Preserve-Pleasure Drive area in Flanders, improving firefighter access and protecting homes adjacent to the preserve in the event of a wildfire there.

The 128-acre area is one of four selected — out of 42 sites initially considered — for management activities, Will Bowman of Land Use Ecological Services told commission members at their meeting at Riverhead Town Hall yesterday afternoon. One of the other selected sites is also in the Flanders Fire District: the area fro Sears Bellows Park to Birch Creek Park, he said.

The contractors propose to construct a new 2.98-mile long, 12-foot wide “suppression line” on the eastern and northern side of the Sarnoff preserve “to facilitate firefighter access and the defense of residential structures” adjacent to the preserve, Bowman said.

The plan also calls for reducing hazardous fuel conditions within 400 to 500 feet of residential properties, by eliminating ladder fuels and thinning out areas of concentrated pitch pines, he said. Those actions will reduce the threat of an active crown fire adjacent to residential areas.

Ladder fuels are ground-level debris and vegetation that enhance a ground fire’s ability to reach the treetops — or forest crown. Once a wildfire spreads to the crown of the forest, it is much more difficult to control.

This will be accomplished with a forestry mower and prescribed fires, Bowman said. The mowing would take place “during the dormant season” between this November and next March, he said. The prescribed fires would be scheduled for early spring next year.

“This is a concept plan,” pine barrens commission executive director John Pavacic said. “A final plan is expected to be developed this fall.”

The commission must complete a review required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act before the plan can be implemented, Bowman said yesterday.

The commission and its contractors will now discuss the concept plan with the fire district, the local civic organization and directly with homeowners in the area, Pavacic said.

Flanders Fire Department Chief Joe Pettit said he’s disappointed the commission would draw up plans without getting input from the fire department at the beginning of the process.

Flanders fire chiefs have been complaining for years about the condition of county- and state-owned lands within the Flanders Fire District, which are overgrown with dense underbrush and littered with both fallen and standing dead oak trees, victims of a massive oak die-off a decade ago. Existing fire access lanes, overgrown and blocked by fallen oaks, are largely impassable, firefighters say.

L.I. Pine Barrens Society executive director Richard Amper, who yesterday asked the commission to be listed as a party of interest in the environmental review proceeding on the proposed plan, today disputed firefighters’ contentions about the conditions of the pine barrens preserved lands.

“They’re complaining that the pine barrens are a mess and they can’t drive their trucks,” Amper said.

“Access to the pine barrens is fine,” Amper said. “Yes, there are some fallen trees but this is not a recreational parkland. It’s a forest preserve. Every time a tree falls down in a forest preserve, you don’t clean it up.”

Amper said he is concerned about the maintenance plans proposed yesterday, especially regarding planned mechanical clearing of undergrowth in the pine barrens.

“It alters the ecology of the pine barrens,” he said in an interview this morning. “The commission needs to look at that very carefully.”

After two brush trucks got stuck in the woods during a wildfire in April — one snapped a tie rod on the root mass of a fallen oak and had to be towed out of the woods — there was a public outcry and an online petition drive.

County Legislator Jay Schneiderman introduced a bill in May authorizing an intermunicipal agreement between the county parks department and the Flanders Fire District that would allow the district to clear existing fire access lanes itself. Schneiderman’s bill has not moved forward.

In June, Pine Barrens Wildfire Task Force chairman Chip Bancroft told RiverheadLOCAL he had arranged to have an Urban Search and Rescue Team drill exercise, to be conducted in conjunction with the civil engineering section and fire department at the Westhampton air base, take place in the Flanders Pine Barrens on Aug. 1 and 2.

There was no mention of that drill at yesterday’s commission meeting. Amper said this morning such a drill could not include any land clearing without a SEQRA review and permits issued by the state.

Bancroft could not be reached for comment.