Fire and Carbon: A Soil Carbon Analysis of Prescribed Burning in North Lake Tahoe Pine Forest.

Fire suppression has caused an unnatural build-up of fuels on the forest floor presenting a high risk for catastrophic wildfires. These stand replacing wildfires affect timber, urban safety, and watershed health. The North Lake Tahoe Fire District (NLTFD) is reducing fuel loads by thinning, broadcast burning, and pile burning. NLTFD asked us to analyze how prescribed burns affect carbon sequestration in the soil, as well as how to make a more efficient sampling design for monitoring. These questions will help with efficiency of time and money in creating burn permits. This project is looking at changes in surface fuels total carbon content in response to fuel treatments over time. Sites were sampled in Incline Village, NV all having different treatment history's with treatments start dates ranging from 1998 to 2013. The sites were sampled using a fine sampling design and a coarse sampling design. The organic matter content was determined by combustion of surface fuels at 450⁰C, analyzing litter and duff layers respectively. On average the litter had 879 (g/m²) and duff had 1278 (g/m²) of carbon. This  indicates that carbon loads in both litter and duff layers are not statistically different as a function of time. Both sampling designs were also found to be statistically equivalent, allowing a coarse sampling design to be effective and efficient. It is however unclear if the effects on carbon is an artifact of the sampling design or if indeed the prescribed fire did little change to the carbon amount.