Pinon Ridge Subdivision Fuels Reduction Project - Pinon Ridge Subdivision Fuels Reduction Project

Project Description The Methodist Front Wildland Urban Interface Forest and Watershed Health Restoration Project will deliver a collaborative, multi-benefit forest restoration pilot project, impacting 478 acres (5 linear miles). Phase 2, (Pinon Ridge Subdivision) of the project will include 10.7 acres that have been identified for hand treatment. Forest types are predominantly pinon-juniper with token ponderosa pines. These forests are unhealthily dense, resulting in increased risk of high severity wildfire and causing detrimental effects on wildlife habitat.

There are two primary goals for the project. First, to reduce behavior of potential future wildfires as they approach wildland-urban interface communities and provide better opportunities for containment and suppression tactics by responders. Second, to increase quantity and quality of herbaceous forage and open travel corridors in critical winter range for regional wildlife. Hand thinning will be utilized within all forest types to create increased crown spacing between retained trees and tree clumps, reduce ladder fuel loading, eliminate accumulations of dead and downed debris, and reduce the continuity of potential wildfire fuel.