BLM High Desert District plans prescribed fires
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RAWLINS, Wyo. – In order to manage our public lands for the benefit of current and future generations through pursuing our multiple-use mission, the Bureau of Land Management High Desert District plans to conduct prescribed fires in the Rawlins Field Office this fall and winter. The prescribed fires will be contingent upon fuel moisture and weather meeting optimal burn conditions. The treatments will only be implemented if specified prescription parameters are obtained.
The five prescribed fire projects were designed to enhance rangeland and woodland vegetation health, improve wildlife habitat, increase livestock and wildlife forage and improve distribution, and reduce the hazardous build-up of fuels, which lessens the probability of severe wildfire.
Sullivan Creek is a forest health improvement project on Shirley Mountain 45 miles northeast of Rawlins. The project is a pre-commercial thinning forest health treatment within regenerated lodgepole pine stands originally harvested in the late 1980s. Small, hand-constructed slash piles are located throughout the target stand and will be removed by burning.
The School Creek project targeted encroaching junipers, which had established in mixed mountain shrublands. There are slash piles on the west flank of the Snowy Range Mountains approximately 15 miles east of Riverside. This site is located along the west slope of Barrett Ridge immediately north of the French Creek Road (Carbon County Road 660) and west of BLM Road 3401 (Bennett Peak Road).
Three commercial harvest and conifer removal sanitation/salvage timber sales took place in 2017 to remove mature and standing dead lodgepole pine from specific sites listed below. The treatment objectives included the removal of standing dead and downed timber and regeneration of healthy lodgepole pine conifer and aspen stands.
The Double Eight Timber Sale project is 40 miles east of Rawlins and south of Interstate 80 along the north edge of the Medicine Bow National Forest in the Snowy Range Mountains.
The Mill Creek Timber Sale project is 30 miles south of Rawlins along the northwest edge of the Medicine Bow National Forest in the Sierra Madre Mountains. The treatment site lies east of Carbon County Road 401 (Sage Creek Road) and Carbon County Road 500 from Saratoga.
The Teddy Creek Timber Sale project is approximately 10 miles west of Encampment, WY along the east slope of the Sierra Madre Mountains and Forest Service Road 443.
A tightly controlled and reviewed implementation planning process is followed in order to produce a prescribed burn plan, which emphasizes public and firefighter safety as the first and most important priority. As with any activity involving landscape scale vegetation treatments, risk cannot be completely removed, but the planning process and the prescribed burn plan that is ultimately produced and followed attempt to mitigate as much risk as possible.
During operations, smoke may be visible from relatively long distances, but should dissipate fairly rapidly due to the time of year and expected weather, the type and amount of material being treated and general atmospheric conditions in the area. Hunters and recreationists are urged to be aware of project areas and prescribed fire operations.
For more information, please contact either HDD Fire Management Officer Frank Keeler at 307-352-0282, or Fuels Specialist Chris Otto at 307-328-4250.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.