Forest Services plans fall pile burning near Pinedale
by Bridger-Teton National Forest
September 29, 2017
PINEDALE, WYOMING – The Bridger-Teton National Forest plans to begin burning slash piles on the Pinedale and Big Piney Ranger Districts in the weeks to come.
The focus for burning will be in a 120-acre treatment area adjacent to the Sylvan Bay summer Homes and Sylvan Bay Day Use Site, approximately four-miles north of Pinedale, Wyoming. This unit lies within the Skyline Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Fuels Reduction Project boundary for which an Environmental Assessment was completed and signed in September of 2016.
The purpose of the project is to reduce fuel loading within the timbered vegetation surrounding Sylvan Bay Summer Homes to reduce the risk from high intensity wildfire and to limit the spread of fire within the designated WUI.
In addition to the Sylvan Bay area, slash piles will also be burned at:
Upper Green Feed Grounds
Halfmoon Campground
New Fork Boy Scout Camp
Horse Creek Guard Station
White Pine Ski Area
Temple Creek Summer Homes
Fisherman Creek Gravel Pit
Fremont Lake Campground
United States Department of Agriculture
This list may not be comprehensive and additional areas with piles may be targeted for burning.
The material to be burned is the result of hazardous fuels reduction projects, timber sales, fencing, and other miscellaneous project work. Slash piles are created by thinning out timber stands and removing lower limbs from trees, as well as removing dead wood and brush from the forest floor. Forest personnel and contractors place the slash in piles and leave them to cure before burning them. Most of the wood is of small diameter and the piles are designed to burn efficiently so that all material is completely consumed. Fire managers ask that the public not take wood from the piles so they will burn more effectively.
Firefighters will light piles by hand after the area has received significant moisture to provide greater security from fire creeping away from piles and to minimize negative effects to nearby trees. Ignitions will cease early in the afternoon each day to allow piles and fuels to burn down prior to evening inversions and reduce smoke impacts to the area.
Smoke will be visible in the vicinity of piles during ignition operations and for a short time after lighting has been completed.
For more information on prescribed fire, fuels reduction projects, and defensible space, visit www.tetonfires.com or call the Pinedale Ranger District at 307-367-4326.
|
