By Kari Skupa and Andrew Hislop
-Lower Montane Region
---High frequency low severity fires
---various beetle & budworm infestations
---Historic stand structure of clumps of mature fire resistant trees surrounded by open meadow.
-covers about 5000 acres of land in fee (own the land outright)
---2000-3000 acres are conservation easements
---Heils still own the right to work the land but they can’t develop it
-very thin soil
-basically all decomposing sandstone with a tiny bit of soil on top of it
-property was used for:
---ranching
---logging
---mining
------quarries
------CU buildings used sandstone from this area
--- This led to historically unnaturally dense forest stands leading to risk of increased fire intensity
Now, BCPOS is doing "Forest Restoration" on the property
-Small projects (10 acres or less)
-Large projects (165 acres or more)
-fire mitigation
---professional crew
---Youth Corps (volunteers)
------pile and clear wood
-163 acres originally for Boulder Open Space project (forest restoration)
---rush job
---property tax pays for most of it in Boulder (relatively stable)
---$100,000 per year to implement contracts
---apply for grants
------National Forest Service
------GoCo
-applied for grant on other side of property
---issues with access
---tried many other areas
-money had to be spent by a quick deadline
---scrambled to get it done
---got it done in 1 month (very fast in the contract world)
-this was not the intended unit for the money
-able to treat more acreage for the same amount of money
-want to get rid of dense stands of trees (mainly Ponderosa Pine in this area)
-favored Junipers and Douglas Fir
-shade tolerance
-no grass, mostly just pine needles
-dense stands of Ponderosa Pine naturally occur
-ended up this way because they were managed this way (ranching, logging, quarries)
-3000 stands per acre in some areas
-survived in the past at densities as low as 3 per acre
-density can’t be lowered that much now
-public outcry
-aesthetics
-Boulder Open Space chose path of least resistance
-accomplish what they want to do while conserving some of the land to please the public
-Mastication treatment
-giant tree chipper chews trees into place
-pieces are flung everywhere
-can treat whole tree stand with one machine
-drought issues
-trees in the area did not even have enough water to produce sap
-increased fire danger
-Basal Area
-surface area that a tree needs to grow to a specific size in a specific area
-measure diameter of tree at breast height to determine Basil Area
-basically means how much wood there is in an area
-Boulder Open Space took density in the area to about half of what it was
120 down to 70
-High frequency, low severity fires in this area
-does thinning for us
-small trees go away while the larger ones stay
-heat input from fire to the ground
-losing more trees than expected, because the roots are damaged by heat
-Mosaic Effect
-groupings of fairly dense trees clumped together
-Boulder Open Space wanted no clumps larger than 2-60 trees per acre
-they wanted 30% of the trees to be open areas for grass
-Boulder Open Space wrote a description of what they wanted and let the contractors pretty much do what they wanted and decide what was necessary
-used historic range of variability as guidelines & justification for the project
-guideline for disturbance regime
-Forest Restoration vs. Fire Mitigation
-Treatments for forest restoration usually meet goals for fire mitigation
-Purpose is maintain healthy forest using historic range of variability
-Treatments for fire mitigation don’t always meet goal for forest restoration
-Only goal is to reduce severity of fire danger
-Importance of interdepartmental cooperation
-Project was designed by foresters but to make it successful had to take into account other departments concerns
-Wildlife issues
-Wildlife Managers were allowed to flag any tree they wanted to save for habitat conservation. Save snags for Abert squirrels and song birds.
-Long term song bird study gives insight on effects of tree thinning on animals.
-Maintained trees of all sizes
-Habitat for animals
-Protect forest from beetle invasion, Beetles prefer larger trees so if only large trees were kept beetles could wipe out whole forest.
-Elk
-Heil is a major highway for Elk migration.
-Use dense forest for thermal cover
-Bats (Fringe Miotis)
-Not yet endangered but protected, require a 500 ft. exclusion area were no human activity is allowed.
-Guidelines told contractors they couldn’t cut beyond a 500 ft. flagged area around bat sight.
-Less strict border was put at ¼ mile
-Ability to Meet guidelines by Contractors
-Contractors could not reach all sitea that needed to be thinned
-Made up for this by thinning other areas more intensely
-Areas that were missed have to manually thinned before prescribed fires are used
-Main goal of Boulder Open Space:
-hold off fire and beetle outbreaks using long term treatments designed using historic range of variability
Questions:
What are the historic fire regime characteristics for Heil Ranch forests? High frequency and low severity
Name 2 of the 3 uses that Heil Ranch served before Open Space bought it? Ranching, Mining, and Logging.
What is the difference between open space in fee land and land in conservation easements? In fee land is owned out right by open space. Land in conservation easements is leased to open space and can be used in historic ways but can’t be developed.
What is Mastication Treatment? Giant tree chipping machines chew trees in place and spread debris.
How many operators were needed to treat 95% of the project area? A)4 B)8 C)1 D) more than 15. C)1
Describe what the Basal Area of a tree is. The surface area that a tree needs to grow to a specific size in a specific area.
Name two of the four animals affected by the project? Elk, Abert Squirrels, Bat (fringe miotis), song birds.
Why doesn’t Boulder Open Space thin out all of the small diameter trees? It would affect the animal habitat and increase the severity of beetle outbreaks.
What forest zone is the majority of Heil Ranch found in, describe the historic stand structure and how and why it has changed? Lower Montane. Historic stand structure is small clumps of large trees surrounded by open grassy meadow. Management for ranching, logging and mining have led to tree densities higher than historically natural.
What is the purpose of pink flagging? Habitat conservation and creation.
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