Washington Hunter
Well-known member
From the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation web site:
As more and more acres of wildlife habitat along Utah’s Wasatch Range outside Salt Lake City fall victim to houses, condos and strip malls, it becomes vital that surrounding public lands provide the healthiest habitat possible for the big game and other wildlife that live there. In the Cascade Springs area west of Heber City, a partnership between the Elk Foundation and Uinta National Forest is using prescribed fire to help restore forage on critical transitional range for elk, mule deer and moose.
Gambel oak communities in northern Utah provide critical food and shelter for a host of wildlife species. Historically, oak brush communities burned at 20-year intervals, but as a result of decades of fire suppression in the Cascade Springs area, much of the brush grows in thickets over 100 years old. At this mature stage, Gambel oak can grow to 30 feet tall and provides an edible acorn crop for elk, deer, squirrels and birds. However, oak is most valuable to big game at a younger stage, when its brushy growth provides browse during the winter months.
In spring 2000, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), with funding assistance from the Elk Foundation, began a multi-year prescribed burn program to rejuvenate old and decadent oak brush communities in the Cascade Springs area. The program calls for burning in a mosaic pattern, which provides a mix of age classes and vegetation types within the treatment area. A root sprouter, Gambel oak regenerates vigorously following fire and can easily grow a foot or more the first year. Opening up the canopy by removing older oak allows grasses and shrubs a chance to flourish as well. To help ensure the vegetation will recover after a burn, the USFS plans to rest each block from livestock grazing for two years.
On an April day when air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, fuel moisture and other conditions were just right, the USFS used drip torches and a helicopter equipped with an ignition device to light the first of three blocks to be burned under the program. According to Jon Warder, former Uinta National Forest wildlife biologist, the USFS managed the fire to burn about 60 percent of the 1,250-acre block, therefore leaving some mature oak for acorn production. He describes the vegetation’s response after the fire as “outstanding.”
“The Gambel oak resprouted immediately,” Warder says, “and because it was a spring burn, the fire just burned off the previous year’s litter, so grasses, forbs and shrubs like serviceberry and chokecherry, which have a high forage value for wildlife, experienced tremendous regrowth as well.”
The USFS planned to burn a second block in the Cascade Springs area during fall 2002, eventually treating 3,800 acres by 2005.
—Lee Cromrich
As more and more acres of wildlife habitat along Utah’s Wasatch Range outside Salt Lake City fall victim to houses, condos and strip malls, it becomes vital that surrounding public lands provide the healthiest habitat possible for the big game and other wildlife that live there. In the Cascade Springs area west of Heber City, a partnership between the Elk Foundation and Uinta National Forest is using prescribed fire to help restore forage on critical transitional range for elk, mule deer and moose.
Gambel oak communities in northern Utah provide critical food and shelter for a host of wildlife species. Historically, oak brush communities burned at 20-year intervals, but as a result of decades of fire suppression in the Cascade Springs area, much of the brush grows in thickets over 100 years old. At this mature stage, Gambel oak can grow to 30 feet tall and provides an edible acorn crop for elk, deer, squirrels and birds. However, oak is most valuable to big game at a younger stage, when its brushy growth provides browse during the winter months.
In spring 2000, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), with funding assistance from the Elk Foundation, began a multi-year prescribed burn program to rejuvenate old and decadent oak brush communities in the Cascade Springs area. The program calls for burning in a mosaic pattern, which provides a mix of age classes and vegetation types within the treatment area. A root sprouter, Gambel oak regenerates vigorously following fire and can easily grow a foot or more the first year. Opening up the canopy by removing older oak allows grasses and shrubs a chance to flourish as well. To help ensure the vegetation will recover after a burn, the USFS plans to rest each block from livestock grazing for two years.
On an April day when air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, fuel moisture and other conditions were just right, the USFS used drip torches and a helicopter equipped with an ignition device to light the first of three blocks to be burned under the program. According to Jon Warder, former Uinta National Forest wildlife biologist, the USFS managed the fire to burn about 60 percent of the 1,250-acre block, therefore leaving some mature oak for acorn production. He describes the vegetation’s response after the fire as “outstanding.”
“The Gambel oak resprouted immediately,” Warder says, “and because it was a spring burn, the fire just burned off the previous year’s litter, so grasses, forbs and shrubs like serviceberry and chokecherry, which have a high forage value for wildlife, experienced tremendous regrowth as well.”
The USFS planned to burn a second block in the Cascade Springs area during fall 2002, eventually treating 3,800 acres by 2005.
—Lee Cromrich
