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1,000 Santa Fe Forest Acres Slated for Burn

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 18:00 CDT

The Forest Service is looking to burn about 1,000 acres of steep, overgrown hillside in the Santa Fe National Forest east of Hyde Park Estates and adjacent to the Black Canyon campground.

Another 825 acres of trees are slated to be thinned by machine and chipped on site, according to Forest Service officials.

"One of the major reasons is to provide protection to the homes," said John Phillips, a resource planner for the Coyote Ranger District, who is involved with the project overseen by the Espanola Ranger District. "And we are confident we can initiate prescribed fires without risk to property."

People and nearby residents with questions, concerns or comments about the Forest Service's plans for thinning the area are invited to an open house hosted today at the Hyde Memorial State Park's Evergreen Lodge, on N.M. 475 (Hyde Park Road). The meeting is scheduled to run from 4-8 p.m.

Phillips said many of the 1,825 acres slated for thinning are overgrown, in many areas exceeding 1,000 trees per acre. The majority of the trees targeted for thinning in the project, he said, are pinon and juniper trees.

The prescribed burn, which will range from low to moderate severity, is necessary because the slopes are too steep for any other method of thinning, Phillips said.

The acreage is a high priority for the forest managers because it is adjacent to a residential area and to the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed, he said.

"We could have a fire that could go 3,000 acres in a hurry if it got a start in there," Phillips said. "Let's put it this way -- we would not get the results we want" if an uncontrolled wildfire burned through the area.

Forest managers are seeking an exemption from a full environmental analysis for the burn under the Bush administration's recently passed Healthy Forests Initiative.

But Phillips said forest managers still need to seek public input on the proposed project and are still required to analyze potential impacts, document them and disclose them for public review.

Source: Albuquerque Journal

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