Completion Form

2022

Phase 3 of the Upper Provo Watershed Restoration Project was completed in 2022 using a combination of WRI, NGO, and USFS funding.  These funds ran through the fiscal years of 2017-2022 and incorporated a combination of treatment types including mastication, lop & scatter, tree well burning, and broadcast burning.  Phase 3 spanned over 4,700 acres along the Mirror Lake Highway in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.  This phase is part of a long-term project to create a system of fuel breaks and decrease fuel loading in a critical watershed. By utilizing the existing road network, a connected system of fuel breaks will be established that can be used to manage future fires. The focus of this phase was to reintroduce fire onto the landscape through broadcast burning and tree well burning.  The broadcast burn involved multiple entries during 2018 & 2019 and was successful at clearing ground fuels in 2819.25 acres.  This phase also incorporated tree well burning Ponderosa Pine within six units totaling 314 acres.  998 acres of juniper were masticated by forest service personnel in three different areas along Mirror Lake Highway.  178 acres were treated in 2018, 197 acres in 2019, and 623 acres between 2020-2022.  By not contracting out this treatment and keeping it in-house, the cost per acre was lower and more acres could be treated than planned (998 vs. 155 acres).  Two lop and scatter treatments totaling 587 acres were completed in 2018 (409 acres were conifer removal and 178 acres for wetland improvement).  Funds leftover from the mastication project were used to increase the scope of lop and scatter from 409 acres to 587 acres.  Over a period of 5 years, 4,718 acres of overstocked forest were treated and returned to resilient and managed conditions.

Jeremy Nelson

08/26/2022 10:55:05