Plan for burn by Ramparts draws crowd

Plan for burn by Ramparts draws crowd

Sept 8, 2001

By Tom Vaughan
Mancos Times Editor

A proposed prescribed burn near the Echo Basin Guest Ranch drew a crowd of 20 to a meeting Wednesday night to hear local forest officials discuss the reasons for the burn and precautions they would take.

Dan and Kathi Bjorkman, owners of Echo Basin, hosted the gathering, which was attended by people who live, run cattle on or own land near the site of the proposed burn.

Tom Kelly, fire-management officer for the Mancos/Dolores District of the San Juan National Forest, said the odds were about 50-50 that the prescribed burn of about 800 acres, mostly oak brush, below and south of Rampart Hills would take place.

According to Kelly, the burn will take place:

• If the Colorado Department of Health OKs the burn from a smoke standpoint;

• If there has been moisture in the three to five days prior to the date of the proposed burn (early October is the target);

• If the relative humidity is 18-22 percent; and

• If the winds are no higher than 10 mph.

If those conditions are met, the Forest Service crews will start igniting the oak brush near the base of the Ramparts and move slowly downhill in an area delineated by Little Creek on the south and southeast, Forest Road 328 on the southwest and "Between-the-Rocks Creek" on the northwest (called Unit A).

If the prescribed burn in Unit A is successful in removing the small-diameter oak brush without taking out the larger oaks as well, the crew will move northwest to the slightly smaller Unit B and repeat the process. The whole burn is expected to be completed within one day.

Failure to meet all of the requirements listed will result in postponement of the treatment by fire until the fall of 2002, or later. Kelly says he has plots scheduled for burning that have waited three years for the right conditions.

The aim of the burn, according to Mark Lauer of the USFS Durango office, is to carry out the objectives of the National Fire Plan, which has been funded at $1.9 billion this year. The first priority of the plan is fire-fighting and fire safety, with rehabilitation of the land a second priority.

Fuel reduction is part of the process, Lauer said, and the increased funding has allowed enough staff increase (Kelly’s crew has gone from seven to 20 people) to allow the agency to carry out controlled burns and other treatments.

USFS Ranger Conservation Technician Cliff Stewart described the Ramparts area as being nearly solid oak brush, which has regrown since it was mechanically treated in the late 1960s. The resprouted, regrown brush is "really thick," Stewart said — so thick that cattle can’t graze it and cattle, riders, deer and elk can’t get through it. The result is intensified grazing in the steadily shrinking open areas.

Rod Boggs, a rancher in the Cherry Creek area, told the Forest Service representatives, "I don’t think our goals (as ranchers) are that much different from yours. . . . The way it is now, you just can’t get through it." Over the years, Boggs said, he has seen the decline of deer and elk in that area.

Boggs described the effect on a thousand acres he burned a few years back as making the land easier to work and increasing the wildlife.

Kelly estimated the total cost of the burn at $60,000-$80,000, including all the planning costs.

Details of the plan will be available on the Web and at the Mancos/Dolores District Office as they are developed.

Persons interested in going with Forest Service personnel on field trips into the area of the proposed burn should call 882-6813 and leave a message for Kelly at the district office by Friday, Sept. 14.