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National Fire Plan Success Story

Bumblebee Fuels Treatment
Dixie National Forest, Pine Valley Ranger District, Utah
2007

The Bumblebee Fuels Treatment Project is located west of Interstate-15 abutting private land of New Harmony, Utah on the Pine Valley Ranger District, Dixie National Forest, Washington County, Utah. The legal description for the project area is T38S R13W Sections 4, 8, 9, 17 and 20.

The Bumblebee Fuels Treatment Project will continue the existing Interagency New Harmony Fuelbreak to the west and north of the community. New Harmony is listed in the Federal Register as a "Community at Risk" to wildland fire and has an active Fire Council and Community Wildland Fire Protection Plan (CWPP). The community is also a Color Country Interagency Fuels Committee Urban Interface Focus Area. The Forest Service along with the Bureau of Land Management and Utah Forestry, Fire, & State Lands are working to plan and execute fuel treatments in the area to make wildland fires easier to contain and extinguish in the Wildland Urban Interface.

Current vegetation adjacent to and within New Harmony consists of dense pinyon and juniper, (30-40% canopy cover) with a heavy shrub understory primarily serviceberry, oak, and sagebrush.  Aside from brush litter, ground cover is nearly non-existent in most areas but does include a cheatgrass component.

Picture of current condition of vegetation
Current conditions.

Picture of desired future vegetation conditions.
Desired future conditions.

The project will construct a shaded fuelbreak approximately four miles long and 240 feet wide by mechanical treatment including thinning and pruning with chainsaws, piling and subsequent pile burning. The proposed action treats 104 acres to a fuel loading that produces flame lengths less than 4 feet on all but the worst 10 percent of the weather days.

Project planning was completed through the Healthy Forests Initiative Categorical Exclusion 10 in FY2007. The contract for thinning, pruning and piling was awarded in FY2007 and the fuelbreak construction will be complete by April 2008. Pile burning is planned for fall, winter and spring 2008/2009.

Contact: Cyndi Sidles, Fuels Specialist, Pine Valley Ranger District (csidles@fs.fed.us)