Timber harvesting plans.

The Z'berg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act of 1973 prohibits a person from conducting timber operations unless a timber harvesting plan prepared by a registered professional forester has been submitted to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The act authorizes the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to exempt from those provisions of the act a person engaged in specified forest management activities, including, until January 1, 2013, the harvesting of trees, limited to those trees that eliminate the vertical continuity of vegetative fuels and the horizontal continuity of tree crowns, for the purpose of reducing the rate of fire spread, duration, and intensity, fuel ignitability, or ignition of tree crowns if the tree harvesting will decrease fuel continuity and increase the quadratic mean diameter of the stand, and the tree harvesting area will not exceed 300 acres. This bill would eliminate the January 1, 2013, termination date for that exemption.