Forest Service plans fire salvage for Fontenelle Fire
Treatment of 1,179 acres in the burn area over the next 5 to 8 years
January 21, 2013
The Big Piney Ranger District of the Bridger-Teton National Forest is accepting public comments until January 25, 2013 as part of their Public Scoping for the Fontenelle Fire Salvage. The Forest Service is asking for potential environmental impacts of the proposed fire salvage project that are of concern to the public.
The Fontenelle Wildfire began on June 24th, 2012 in the vicinity of Labarge Creek on the Kemmerer Ranger District.The fire quickly spread north and burned uncontrollably for the next three weeks. When the Fontenelle fire was finally contained the fire perimeter encompassed approximately 64,000 acres of Forest Service, private and BLM lands in Lincoln and Sublette counties in Wyoming.
The Big Piney Ranger District is proposing to implement vegetation management activities within the Fontenelle Fire perimeter. Specifically, the Forest is proposing to harvest fire killed trees and do associated road maintenance, temporary road construction and obliteration and road decommissioning in the fire perimeter area.
Approximately 1,179 acres would be treated within the analysis area of approximately14,355 acres over the next 5 to 8 years.
The analysis area and harvest units were selected to minimize impacts to roadless areas, lessen the need for temporary roads, avoid any new road construction and to maximize timber production on slopes less than 40%. There are no proposed harvest units within any roadless areas. There are no proposals to construct or build any permanent roads. Harvest units would not be located within 100 feet of any live stream or riparian area. Only fire killed/burned trees would be harvested. No trees with any live needles or green vegetation would be removed. Only trees larger than 8" in diameter are proposed for harvest, leaving all small trees on site for erosion control. The main tree species present is lodgepole pine, however Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir occur in the mixed conifer stands along with minor amounts of Douglas-fir.
The project area is located south of Middle Piney Creek, east of Fish Creek Mountain and Mount Darby, and extends through Snider Basin and ends on Packsaddle Ridge. Several commercial timber sales are anticipated over the life of the project. Approximately 3.0 miles of temporary road would be constructed, used and obliterated after use.
Two gravel sources located in the project area would be made available for use as road surfacing material to improve roadways in the project area. The gravel sources are located in near Middle Piney Creek and on Packsaddle Ridge.
Written comments must be submitted to: District Ranger, Big Piney Ranger District, P. O. Box 218, Big Piney, WY 83113. The office business hours for those submitting hand-delivered comments are 8:00-4:30 Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Oral comments must be provided at the Big Piney Ranger District, 10418 South Highway 189, during normal business hours via telephone 307-276-5800 or in person. Electronic comments must be submitted in rich text format (.rtf). or Word (.doc) to comments-intermtn-bridger-teton-big-piney@fs.fed.us. Please address any form of comments as attention: Fontenelle Fire Salvage Project Comments.
Additional information relevant to this project is available on the Bridger-Teton National Forest website at: http://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/btnf/projects.
The Responsible Official for the decision is the Big Piney District Ranger. For more information please contact Travis Bruch, Interdisciplinary Team Leader, at 307-739-5562 or at tbruch@fs.fed.us.
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