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Mission 09 · Uncompahgre Plateau (GMUG National Forests), CO

South Uncompahgre fuels

Uncompahgre Plateau (GMUG National Forests)

The agency files it as “South Uncompahgre Hazardous Fuels and Ecological Resiliency”

Timing

The agency stopped taking comments on September 21. What you find still counts: it backs the formal objections from people who did comment, it goes to the lawyers on the fight, and it is the story.

The sentence we think is wrong

“FlamMap modeling indicates there is currently little potential for active crown fire activity. This condition would be maintained by the Proposed Action.”

The agency wrote that in its own document, under Fire, Fuel, and Air Quality. Nobody has been out to check it. A dated photograph either backs it up or ends it.

How you settle it

In the treatment stands on the south Uncompahgre Plateau, photograph the thickest timber you can reach: dead limbs and small trees carrying up into the tree tops, and crowns touching. Photos showing a continuous run of dead limbs and small trees from the ground up into a closed, touching canopy would undercut the claim that a crown fire is unlikely there.

The decision

The GMUG National Forests have finalized an environmental assessment for the South Uncompahgre Hazardous Fuels and Ecological Resiliency project, a 20-year landscape-scale vegetation management framework covering 267,300 acres on the Uncompahgre Plateau. The project would authorize up to 50,000 acres of commercial and non-commercial timber harvest, 71,100 acres of hazardous fuels treatments near t

Read the whole thing, and write to the agency about it

How to record it so it counts

  1. 01Stand in the unit. Photograph the stand at eye level in four directions.
  2. 02Photograph the ground fuels: needles, brush, downed wood, with a pole for scale.
  3. 03Photograph whether a fire on the ground could climb: low branches and small trees making a continuous run of fuel from the forest floor up into the treetops.
  4. 04Estimate the share of standing trees that are dead in a circle around you, and write it down with the photos that show it.
  5. 05Photograph any evidence of past fire or past treatment.
What would count
  • Live and dead in the same frame. "Mostly green" with the photos to prove it.
  • The fuel on the ground and the way it connects upward, with something in the frame for scale.
All of it, with the phone settings, in the field guide
Are you going?

Say yes or no. It tells the next person whether anyone has this ground covered, and it is the only way we know a request was answered rather than just read. You can change your mind any time, and nobody follows up.

Join, then say you’re going

Nobody has answered yet

Before you go
  1. Public land only. Plenty of land inside a national forest or park boundary is privately owned, and that is not yours to walk on. A gate or a closure sign means stop. Check the rules for the specific place you are going, because they differ.
  2. Don’t touch survey stakes, flagging, equipment or anything a crew left. Photograph it; leave it.
  3. Don’t approach crews, contractors or agency staff about the project. Don’t interfere with any operation.
  4. Wildlife at a distance. No drones in wilderness or anywhere they’re prohibited. Stay off closed roads and trails.
  5. If you’re not sure, don’t. Weather, terrain, water, fire and people are your call, and yours alone.

More Than Just Parks doesn’t direct where you go or what you do. Terms.