Alpine Forestry News Today

Scheduled rain or shine for Saturday, May 4, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., the event coincides with Wildfire Community Preparedness Day.

For the last two seasons, crews have made significant progress on Treasure Hill, with only a couple hundred piles left to burn.

For both resorts, these efforts are the same accepted practices across wildland urban interface spaces: slashing and burning piles to remove excess wildfire fuels.

In previous years, Alpine Forestry crews slashed and piled about 1,500 piles over roughly 30 acres of land on Treasure Hill. Conditions permitting, teams hope to burn around 200 more piles over the coming weekend.

As snow begins to accumulate along our mountains, pile burning is ramping up before winter fully arrives. The task, while perhaps a not-so-glamorous part of a wildland firefighters job, could make all the difference for a town in the wake of a wildfire. 

In Pinebrook, there are 1,500 acres of land in need of management, with 600 acres under HOA care. Pinebrook, like many parts of the Wasatch Back, is also struggling with beetle-killed trees. Removing dead trees and managing the spread of the disease are both necessary elements of forest management.

A City Hall-hired firm is scheduled to perform controlled burns on the Treasure land overlooking Old Town and on open space in the area of Rossi Hill on Friday.

“They just issued an evacuation order for Mt. Aire. Are you guys okay?” The text message inquired . I was more confused than alarmed. Working away at home in my pandemic bubble, I was totally oblivious to the creeping threat hinted at in the text. While I was staring at a screen with a half-eaten PB&J in hand, a wildfire sparked on I-80 by a dragging truck chain was moving its way up Parley’s Canyon towards the neighborhood where I and thousands of others live.  It’s easy to feel insul...