Completion Form

2021

This project has been planned as a priority-based project from the start. Our number one goal is to put fire back on the landscape within the WMA and use it to help us restore the upper elevations of the WMA to a more wildlife friendly plant community. We realized early on in the planning that this was going to be a timing thing and that it would be difficult to ask for money to light an RX Fire and then never spend the money and keep asking for the money hoping for a burn window. So instead we planned it to be an RX Fire if possible but if it is not looking likely that we would be able to light the fire and meet out number one priority for the area then we would have backup plans for how to use the money. With this phase of the project the RX fire was number one and then some lop and scatter was number 2 and the bullhog and seeding efforts were the number 3 priority. We thought that we might be able to complete both the 2nd and 3rd priorities with the funding this time if the RX Fire was not able to happen. However when we went to do the contracting for the mastication we realized that a change in the guard at the position of archaeologist had this project not where we thought we would be and the consultation for the archaeology was not completed. This put us back enough that we were only able to implement the lop and scatter that was planned. Not wanting to leave a whole bunch of money sitting idle we discussed some ideas with the district biologist, and ended up scaling up the lop and scatter efforts. By doing this we felt that we would still meet the management goals of the WMA and do good things for wildlife. The lop and scatter efforts, along with some RX Fire prep work on the northwest RX Fire polygon, are the treatments that we were able to get completed this year.

We contracted out the lop and scatter work to 3 B's Forestry Inc. They showed up to the job with a dozen workers and then about a week later added another dozen totaling 24 plus a foreman on the job. With this many people they worked through the units very quickly and were done in what seemed like no time at all. As the project inspector it took a good amount of effort to keep up with the crews on inspections but they were doing a great job and only missing trees that were very difficult to see due to being very small. When they finished the project it looked great and the work they completed was nothing short of fantastic. They were hard working and their foreman was very good to work with and would correct and deficiencies immediately.
At the same time as the Lop and Scatter crews were working we had Lone Peak Hotshots come and do some RX Fire Prep work on the unit on the Northwest end of the WMA. They cut and cleared a defensible fire line around the unit in preparation for igniting the RX Fire. If the conditions are good and within the prescription defined in the RX Fire Plan then the fire will be ignited fall of 2021. We are hopeful for this to happen.

Curtis Roundy

08/20/2021 10:55:46