ARC offers full-service Registered Professional Forestry consulting services working with landowners to develop executable plans and permits supporting contract compliance through project completion.
Services We Provide to Get the Job Done
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Goal oriented project strategy, planning, and grant development -
Preparing and applying for an array of different Exemptions, Secretarial Suspensions, California Vegetation Treatment Program (CalVTP) Project-Specific Analyses (PSAs), Timber Harvest Plans (THPs), Non-industrial Timber Management Plans (NTMPs), and other CEQA documents
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Archaeological survey work including noticing, memorandums, field surveys, meeting with tribes, developing California Archaeological Addendums, and Archaeological Survey Reports
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Landscape Level Prioritized Resilience Treatment planning (LLPRT – pronounced “LEOPARD”)
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Prepare Wildfire Risk Reduction Assessments that support reducing wildfire risk for facilities and communities in high risk areas
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Expert ARC GIS PRO analysis and map development
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Experienced agency consultation and negotiation at County, State, and Federal levels including the California Coastal Commission
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Field verification and layout for treatment in preparation for contractor operations
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Contractor supervision for permit and CEQA document compliance
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Wildfire Risk Reduction Assessments (WRRA)
Specialized Services
Navigating Challenging Permitting Landscapes and Projects
ARC’s work supports landscape level resilience in changing climates in connection with the history of humans on the landscape and with the communities that exist today. We share the responsibility in stewarding these landscapes along with our partners, agencies, collaborators, and neighbors. ARC Forestry prides itself in spending time to listen and understand these landscapes to develop actionable and maintainable projects trending ecosystems towards resilience. Understanding the balance of human dynamics across the landscape may be one of the hardest and most important aspects of our job, but we appreciate the unique qualities of all people and their connection to the land including the flora and fauna we share responsibility in stewarding.
Contractor Compliance and Project Supervision
One of our favorite things to do as a team is to make challenging projects happen on the ground. We have supported the treatment of 1000’s of acres of treatments in redwood, Douglas-fir, Monterey pine, knobcone pine, oak woodland, eucalyptus, acacia, chaparral, and other sensitive natural communities. We have worked hard to understand and develop our technique to cover all aspects of supervising treatment operations and take a great deal of pride in its execution - one of ARC Forestry’s top features.
LEOPARD
ARC Landscape Level Prioritized Resilience Treatment planning (LLPRT – pronounced “LEOPARD”):
- Gathers all available high resolution GIS data related to wildfire hazard, human communities, previous projects, sensitive resources, and considers how fire might move through this landscape.
- ARC adds their years of on the ground experience considering treatment access, effort to obtain a permit for treatments, cost for treatment implementation relative to access, treatment prescription, and vegetation type, including future maintenance and discussions with local experienced fire fighting professionals.
- The results are two different planned features, Strategically Prioritized Resilience Treatment Areas and Units, referred to as SPRT Areas or SPRT Units (pronounced “sport” area or “sport unit”), that delineate larger Treatment Areas to consider where more specific resilience Treatments Units are finalized for treatment implementation.
- The top priority for designing SPRT Area and SPRT Units is wildfire resilience and ecosystem restoration.
The LEOPARD planning method has provided the highest level of success in efficient and prioritized treatment implementation accuracy and budgeting when completed by a team of foresters that has significant experience in all aspects of treatment operations and communications.
The completion of LEOPARD concludes with the FIELD VERIFICATION phase of SPRT Units on the ground that includes ARC Forestry’s experience in how access, economics, permitting, sensitive resources, and maintenance critically culminate into treatment unit implementation success.
Wildfire Risk Reduction Assessments - WRRA
- ARC’s WRRA process is focused on large high use facilities or planned communities in densely vegetated high risk areas to reduce the risk of wildfire. The WRRA is certified by Registered Professional Foresters and built to inform organizations, communities, and insurance companies as to what the current wildfire risk is or how it has been reduced.
- The ARC assessment is based on a scoring system that rates the organizations wildfire resilience readiness that consider through site visits and interviews budget, administrative readiness, insurance, training, evacuation, accessibility, cameras, water infrastructure, facilities maintenance, communications system, situational and regional awareness, CAL FIRE or local fire district requirements, hazard tree evaluation, and fuels management. The result is a set of Critical/Immediate actions, including explanation and justification, that should be taken to reduce wildfire risks.
- These assessments are often provided to the organizations board for budget changes to cover critical or immediate actions and shared with insurance companies to demonstrate compliance or show positive directional changes to maintain or reduce insurance costs.
