Past management on the Forest including fire exclusion, have led to a wider distribution of mid to late successional vegetation and increased fuel loadings across the project area and surrounding landscape. Fire modeling predicts wildfires in the project area are likely to be uncharacteristically large and undesirably high in severity. This project is designed to reduce fire risk to life safety, property, watersheds, and natural resources by restoring resilience and sustainability to a fire dependent ecosystem through the proposed activities. This project has been strategically identified to reduce risk of fire to the Mammoth Creek Subdivision and is an extension of a hazard fuel mitigation strategy tying several completed and planned fuel reduction projects together at the forest landscape scale. The Henrie Knolls North project is in the process of treating 5,710 acres in the Mammoth Creek and Duck Creek Village areas.

Create a disturbance resilient, sustainable ecosystem by reducing surface fuels, ladder fuels and forest density using thinning, pruning, slash piling and pile burning treatments to reduce fire risk to firefighters, forest users, communities, natural resources and watersheds. Reducing risk of high intensity large scale unwanted fire and unwanted fire effects. Surface fuels will be 5 to 10 tons per acre post treatment.

This project area is directly adjacent to Mammoth Creek and Tommy Creek Subdivision's which is private land with numerous high value structures as well as Forest Highway 50. This is a wildland urban interface (WUI) setting that decreases fire management discretion in fire management decisions. Stands within the project area are continuous offering potential for uncharacteristic large scale high intensity wildfire events. As witnessed from recent past wildfire events on this mountain range (Shingle fire 2012, Brian Head fire 2017) fire effects to the watersheds, infrastructure, communities, and tributaries was high and negative. Moderate to high degrees of sedimentation and erosion occurred on the steeper slopes and drainage bottoms resulting in negative effects to streams and aquatic life found in those streams. As a result of these fires, debris flows occurred in some watersheds impacting municipal and agricultural water resources, water infrastructure, and transportation infrastructure negatively.

1) Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Statewide Management Plan for Mule deer. Section IV Statewide management goals and objectives, Strategy C. Initiate broad scale vegetative treatment projects to improve mule deer habitat with emphasis on drought or fire damaged sagebrush winter ranges, ranges that are being taken over by invasive annual grass species, and ranges being diminished by encroachment of unwanted conifers into sagebrush, aspen habitats, and ponderosa pine stands 2) North American Mule Deer Conservation Plan (Mule Deer Working Group 2004). A) Mule deer habitat Objectives and Strategies-Develop and implement habitat treatment protocols that reduce the impacts of cheatgrass or other invasive plants. B) Manage mule deer habitat in a fashion to control type conversions (i. e., conversion of rangeland to croplands, and shrublands to monotypic pinyon-juniper stands) (Pg. 7). 3) National Fire Plan (NFP) - Primary Goals: 1) Improve fire prevention and suppression; 2) Restore fire adapted ecosystem. 4) Accompanying (NFP) 10 year Comprehensive Strategy - Guiding Principles: 3) Prevent invasive species and restore watershed function and biological communities through short-term stabilization and long-term rehabilitation; 4) restore healthy, diverse, and resilient ecological system to minimize uncharacteristically severe fires on a priority watershed basis through long-term restoration. 5) State of Utah-Catastrophic Wildfire Reduction Strategy-Protecting the health and welfare of Utahns and our lands. Priority Action Areas- Southwest Region 6, Garfield and Kane Counties-the project is near the Mammoth Creek community on National Forest Lands (pg. 19). 6) Strategic Management Plan for Wild Turkey-Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR 2000, Publication 00-25). Grasses provide food for adults and are especially important to poults as an environment where they can effectively forage for insects. Poults need an environment that produces insects and in which they can efficiently forage. Poults need an area that provides enough cover to hide them, but allows the adult hen unobstructed vision for protection from predators 7) Land and Resource Management Plan-Dixie National Forest (LRMP 1986). Management Area 9A (Manage Forest cover types to perpetuate tree cover and provide healthy stands, high water quality and wildlife and fish habitat) and 9B (Enhance riparian vegetation, improve water quality, improve wildlife and fish habitat, increase wildlife populations, and improve stream channel stability). 8) Utah Support Area Fire Management Plan (2005). Protection of critical deer habitat and watershed protection (p196). 9) Conservation Agreement and Strategy for Southern leatherside (Lepidomeda aliciae) in the State of Utah: Conservation Element B, Habitat Enhancement, Enhance and/or restore habitat conditions in designated area throughout the historical range of southern leatherside. Conservation Element D, Restore Hydrologic Conditions, Maintain and restore, and/or augment natural hydrologic conditions.

Project area averages 20+ tons per acre of surface fuel loading, combined with tight crown canopy closure, and abundant ladder fuels. Fire behavior modeling indicates high potential for high intensity crown fires, uncharacteristically high flame lengths, and potential for large fire growth. Fires of this nature would result in negative post fire effects concerning soil erosion, sedimentation, debris flows, and increase the potential for invasive and noxious weeds. High intensity fires are difficult to suppress and increase risk to firefighters, public, communities, infrastructure, natural resources, and watersheds. The target is to have 5 to 10 tons per acre of surface fuels and little to no ladder fuels post treatment. This project will provide a key piece of fuels treatment on the Henrie Knolls North project that will connect other ongoing and planned treatments together and effectively remove a "wick" of dense fuels that leads directly to the Mammoth Creek Subdivision and numerous high value structures surrounded by dense fuels.

The Watersheds (Mammoth Creek) in this area are tributaries of the west fork of the Sevier River. Treatments will occur in and adjacent to the Stream Management Zones (SMZ) to reduce the risk of high intensity stand replacing fires and treatments are designed to maintain natural SMZ function.

The NEPA process is complete for this project and the decision has been loaded in the documents portion of this proposal. Cultural clearance has been obtained.

Mechanical and hand treatments will be used to thin, prune, and pile the live and dead vegetation. Retained trees will be limbed up to 6 ft high and surface materials (slash) less than 6 inches diameter will be hand piled. Burning will be used to remove generated piles. Broadcast under burning will be used to achieve the desired 5-10 tons per acre fuel loading in areas identified post pile burning having fuel loads greater than 15 tons per acre.

Fuel reduction and future fuel loads will be monitored/measured using browns transects and/or photo series monitoring tools. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources will continue to perform counts on the deer, elk and pronghorn populations on the Panguitch Lake Unit #28. Elk number objectives on this unit were recently changed in 2016 with an emphasis on monitoring habitat suitability and effectiveness to sustain this objective long-term. Timber Regeneration monitoring will be conducted if there is a need to plant more trees post proposed treatments.

Federal, State, and Local Agencies that have been consulted with regarding this project including: Brian Head Town Mayor, Cedar City Mayor, Cedar Mountain Fire Protection District, Five County Association Of Governments, Garfield County Commissioner's, Panguitch City Mayor, Congressman Chris Stewart, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Senator Mike Lee, United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation District, Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Utah Department of Transportation, Utah Division of Forestry Fire and State Lands, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Resource Development Coordinating Committee, Senator Evan Vickers, Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Garkane Energy, Grand Canyon Trust, PacifiCorp, South Central Telephone Association, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Western Watersheds Project, and Dixie National Forest.

Prescribed fire, management of naturally ignited wildfires, timber harvest, and thinning will continue to be used when prescribed to maintain or increase the health, resilience and sustainability of this fire adapted ecosystem.

Recreation will be enhanced when the forest is opened up and the surface and ladder fuels are greatly decreased. Materials 6 inches in diameter and greater would be available for public wood gathering in places near open roads.

06/01/2023

06/30/2024

2024

All trees targeted for thinning have been cut, leave trees pruned, and all slash piled and now ready for burning. Burning is scheduled to be conducted the fall of 2024 by Forest Service personnel and funded by the USFS as in-kind funding to this project (see finance). Forest Service personnel monitored the progress of the contract crew weekly and on days when some minor issues or other important information was passed and discussed with the contractor it was documented in a daily diary (see images and documents) most of the time things went smoothly and were to contract standard. Burning of the hand piled slash still needs to be done by Forest Service and is targeted for this fall and next when we have snow present to burn the piles.

Project was thinning, pruning, and hand piling of slash to create a fire resilient forest ecosystem in and above Mammoth Spring. Garfield County, Utah Thinning, pruning, hand piling of existing and project generated slash operations on this project started in the spring of 2023 and finished late summer of 2023. Timber Thinning (574 acres): Cut all juniper, subalpine fir, spruce, and white fir trees 9 inches Diameter Breast Height (DBH) and smaller. Cut the remaining ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir trees to 18 by 18 foot spacing. This will leave approximately 134 trees per acre. Leave tree preference in order of priority is Ponderosa pine, and Douglas-fir. Trees taller than 18 inches were subject to thinning. Stumps left were 6 inches tall or less as measured on the uphill side. Stumps have no live limbs greater than 1/4 inch in diameter. Remaining trees over 9 inches Diameter at Breast Height (DBH) will be limbed up to 6 feet high. Mistletoe infected trees with a Hawksworth Mistletoe Rating of 2 or greater and up to 18 inches DBH were cut Snags were not cut other than for personnel safety reasons. No cutting of live aspen trees was conducted. Hand piling all slash and boles 8 inches diameter and smaller. This included existing and project generated slash and boles. Logs over 8 inches diameter were not be piled as they were left for wildlife habitat (small mammals) but had all the branch removed from the bole with a cut that is flush to the bole. All material with a minimum size of 1-inch diameter and 18 inches in length up to 8 inches diameter was piled. All slash piles were at least 50 feet away from stream channels, were not piled on desirable leave logs, and were constructed out of the drip line of residual leave trees. Leave trees were also pruned up to 6 ft further reducing ladder fuels. Piles were constructed as each bullet point states below: * Teepee shaped. * Constructed in such a manner that will allow them to burn completely. * Taller than they are wide. * Free of trash and dirt. * Contain no logs over 8 inches diameter. * Thinned units were piled and completed before contractor moved to new unit to begin thinning operations.

Burning of hand piled slash will be conducted this fall 2024 and possibly next fall 2025 by Forest Service fire and fuels management employees as in-kind work funded and performed by the United States Forest Service (see finance in kind funding). Area will be reevaluated, and fuel loading measurements will be taken by Forest Service personnel in coming years to see if more understory burning needs to occur to maintain a wildfire resilient Forest ecosystem.