Our Natural Resource Program provides watershed management and other natural resource related information to a wide variety of county residents and visitors. The goal is to promote sound management and conservation of the region's natural resources, through research, educational activities, and good working relationships with a broad range of people. The main clientele for this position are private landowners; resource management professionals working on private, State and Federal lands; and other groups such as users of public lands, conservation organizations, and the agriculture and forest products industries. The Natural Resources Program examines forest resources and hardwood rangeland including soil, water, vegetation and wildlife.

Fire Recovery Photo Project
The most frequent question we have received, and one that we have been asking ourselves, for the past few months is, "What are our natural landscapes going to look like this year after the winter rains and the following years?" We cannot answer this question right now, even though our best guess is that in a few years the hillsides, meadows and creeks will look like they did before the fire.
The goal of the Fire Recovery Photo Project is to record changes in a selection of burnt areas over the next few years with the use of photo points. Photo points are a series of photographs taken from the same site, looking at the same landscape over time. The first series of photos of 32 different views from the sites are now available for viewing. These were all taken from publicly accessible locations. These same photo points will be taken and added to this page quarterly.

Carl E. Bell
Regional Advisor-Invasive Plants