What does this mean for the forests around Prescott, which are included in the Top 10 high-priority fire risk areas in Arizona?
What does this mean for the forests around Prescott, which are included in the Top 10 high-priority fire risk areas in Arizona?
A lot of the fire-prevention work needed around the Prescott area involves hand thinning and using masticators to grind up understory material. According to Joshua Bahlin, forestry program manager for the Prescott National Forest, that’s because the Prescott National Forest’s pine stands have a slightly different history than those of the Coconino and Kaibab national forests. “The last big cut in the Prescott area was in the early 1900s, when timber was needed for mines, building the town, along with clearance for grazing. Then there was a mass regeneration event in 1905-06, over a decade earlier than the mass regrowth that occurred in the forests around Flagstaff and Williams. So, we tend to have trees in this area that are a bit taller and a bit older, with fewer extensive mature stands, compared to farther north.”
He says that means there are fewer large-scale commercial thinning projects. “Typically, we only have a timber sale suitable for large diameter mechanical harvesting just once a year, with between 500-1,000 acres available.”
With a lot of the forest in the urban-wildland interface around Prescott already treated, on many acres, it’s more of a maintenance than a thinning operation. “A lot of the work involves masticators to grind up understory material, as well as hand thinning, which is done by paid contractors, although we haven’t put out any contracts recently,” said Bahlin.
One of those contractors is Prescott-based Bob Lee & Sons. “Just like on private land, we have to bid for these contracts, which pay us a certain amount per acre,” said company owner Dale Lee, whose father, Bob, a former uranium miner, started the company in the early 1980s.
The company covers most of Northern and Central Arizona. “We own and operate state-of-the-art equipment that includes chipping, grinding and small-scale logging gear, doing anything from removing single trees to thousands of them on Forest Service, private and residential properties,” said Lee. “For example, we just finished a 50-acre job at a Christian kids camp paid for by a grant administered by the state.”
The competition for forest thinning contracts has become fiercer in the last few years. “The acreage being offered up by the Forest Service on timber sales currently is not enough wood for guys like me to go after – and so now we’re getting in bidding wars for the sales that do come up.”
Lee believes a major problem area is not around Prescott but further north. “Driving from Williams via I-40 down Lake Mary Road to Blue Ridge, you see thousands of acres needing treatment. I’d like to see 10,000 acres offered up in the next 60 days to address this problem,” he said. “My company has enough inventory to get us through the end of this year, but after that, it’s looking pretty grim if things don’t change.”
From here, much of the salable timber is milled into pallets or rough sawn timber, some of it shipped to Mexico. Other material is turned into decorative pieces such as fireplace mantles and non-structural interior beams used in Southwestern building designs. Some wood from smaller diameter trees goes to a packing plant in Laveen, where it’s turned into packaged firewood. But there’s often only one option for difficult terrain, says Prescott National Forest Public Affairs Officer Debbie Maneely. “Some acres are just too steep to allow harvesting and fuel removal, and prescribed burning may be the only practical option to make forests wildfire-safe.” QCBN
By Diane Hope, QCBN
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