Timber harvesting plans: exempt activities.

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 engaging in specified forest management activities, including, 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. Under existing law, the notice of exemption issued for this exemption, known as the Forest Fire Prevention Exemption, may be authorized only if certain conditions are met, including that only trees less than 18 inches in stump diameter, measured at 8 inches above ground level, may be removed, as provided. This bill would provide that an additional notice of exemption, known as the Forest Fire Prevention Pilot Project Exemption, may be authorized if certain conditions are met, including, among others, that only trees less than 24 inches in stump diameter, measured at 8 inches above ground level, may be removed, as provided. The bill would provide that these provisions shall become inoperative 3 years after the effective date of regulations adopted by the board implementing these provisions.