With one of the worst fire seasons in recent memory behind them, local fire managers with the U.S. Forest Service are already moving ahead with actions meant to reduce the risk of future catastrophic wildfires.
The officials, including the Sawtooth National Forest's Ketchum District Ranger Kurt Nelson, have described the wintry weather that passed through the region during the weekend of Sept. 22 and 23 as a "season ending weather event."
Since then, additional snows have blanketed the high country in and around the Wood River Valley and Stanley Basin.
Nelson said that, closer to home, officials are gearing up for a prescribed burn in high-elevation stands of whitebark pine trees within the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. Elsewhere, a small amount of burning will be conducted in the Baker Creek drainage on the Ketchum Ranger District to eliminate a number of slash piles, he said.
Weather depending, Boise and Sawtooth National Forest officials have made plans to conduct another prescribed burn as early as Oct. 8. As long as Mother Nature cooperates, the agencies will conduct the burn in the North Fork of Lime Creek, which is about nine miles southeast of the backcountry burg of Featherville.
The stream is located in the western Soldier Mountains, the prominent range seen to the north while driving along U.S. Highway 20 west of Fairfield.
One of the primary purposes of the controlled burn is to remove encroaching conifer trees and brush that are competing with aspen stands, said Mike Dettori, district ranger of the Sawtooth National Forest's Fairfield Ranger District.
"This will also greatly help with reducing the fire hazard in this area," Dettori said.
The upcoming exercise will mark the sixth year of prescribed burning in the Lime Creek area, a Forest Service press release indicates. The goal of the burns is to improve the health, vigor and sustainability of existing aspen stands, whose declines throughout large portions of the West have federal forest managers concerned.
During the upcoming activity, firefighters plan to burn approximately 2,000 acres out of a larger 40,000-acre area. To date, more than 14,000 acres of aspen trees and surrounding vegetation have been treated.
Officials say the burning has produced promising results.
"Many of the areas previously burned are exhibiting aspen regeneration sprouts that are two to three feet high," Dettori said.
Forest officials estimate that more than 60 percent of the aspens in Idaho have been lost due to fire, disease and encroaching vegetation.
