The East Troublesome Fire sparked and rapidly grew into the second most destructive wildfire of 2020 less than 80 miles east of Steamboat Lake, as the crow flies. Winds carried the smoke plume and flames away from homes around the lake and Hahn’s Peak Village, leaving some residents feeling they’d narrowly escaped danger — again. A couple months earlier, the Cameron Peak Fire ignited about 60 miles to the east. It would become the largest acreage wildfire in state history. Winds also carried it east, away from the lake.
“One of these days, we’re going to get a fire started to the west of us and, with these forest conditions, there’s a lot of ground it’s going to cover. I hate to say it because I live up here in the path of it, too,” said John Twitchell, Steamboat Springs supervisory forester for the Colorado State Forest Service.
Twitchell and CSFS staff in northwest Colorado have long been working to improve forest conditions across Routt County. As part of that continued effort, contractors recently began work on the North Routt County fuels reduction project. It uses the Good Neighbor Authority to let the CSFS partner with the U.S. Forest Service to deliver what county residents have been asking for — help lowering their risk of wildfire.
“Luckily, we have good relationships here and good support for the work. It’s been years in the making. North Routt has been asking for decades for this work to happen,” said Carolina Manriquez, CSFS lead forester in the Steamboat office overseeing the project.
The GNA program lets the U.S. Forest Service enter into agreements with state forestry agencies to pool resources to complete critical, cross-boundary work that improves forest health, reduces wildfire risk and protects watersheds. In north Routt County, partnering with the CSFS helps the U.S. Forest Service access land-locked federal forest, reachable only with agreement of residents whose private lands surround it. The relationships CSFS foresters have with area landowners helped that access become reality. Forest treatments will lower wildfire risk around nearly 600 structures in the wildland-urban interface around Steamboat Lake, should that western flank fire ever ignite.
“As foresters, what we want to make sure of is that we’ve made this landscape as resilient as we can,” Twitchell said. “We’re also protecting these rural WUI areas. With this project, we’re killing two birds with one stone.”
In later phases of the project, the U.S. Forest Service will enlist the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps to do handwork with chainsaws to help reduce ladder fuels and create fuel breaks. Lead CSFS forester Manriquez will work with landowners on mitigation efforts, ensuring residents’ work on their own properties aligns with the work done on national forest land.
“This doubles the buffer against wildfire,” she said. “That’s something we can bring to the landowners who are giving us access to get to the federal forest. In projects like these, we try to think about improving forest conditions on both sides of the fence.”
Getting Rid of Ghosts
A sentinel of the Elkhead Mountains, Hahn’s Peak is an extinct volcano and popular hiking destination, with hundreds of cars a year carrying hikers over bumpy forest service roads to summit the 10,774-foot peak. Six miles south, Steamboat Lake State Park attracts more than 400,000 visitors a year. Hahn’s Peak Village is nestled between the two, a historic gold mining town boasting original log cabins built in the 1800s, some now refurbished summer homes.
In the surrounding Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, declining conditions have been intensified by insects. First, the mountain pine beetle epidemic hit. Since 1996, mountain pine beetle has affected more than 3.3 million acres in Colorado. More than 346,000 acres of that is in Routt County, covering an area larger than all of Rocky Mountain National Park. These dead trees are in the ghosting phase, gray and without any needles. Prone to falling at a high rate, they create large fuel loads on the forest floor, which leads to similar conditions that allowed the East Troublesome Fire to spread exceptionally fast in 2020.
After the mountain pine beetles came abnormally large populations of spruce beetle, which are still active in the area. This small, native bark beetle has affected more than 1.9 million acres of forests across the state since 1996 and 86,000 acres in Routt County.
“We’re trying to be proactive instead of reactive in removing the spruce beetle before they get a hold,” Manriquez said. “We’re looking strategically at where we can grow the future forest. I have hopes of more aspen coming back in and having a healthier forest.”
The GNA project will address these issues and also help protect the Yampa River watershed, one of Colorado’s last wild rivers. The Yampa feeds into the Colorado River, a crucial source of water for seven states and Mexico that supplies drinking water to 40 million people.
Supporting Local Mills
The North Routt GNA project took shape from two existing Community Wildfire Protection Plans the CSFS developed with Routt County and the North Routt Fire Protection District. The fire district also received a Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation grant for wildfire fuels reduction on private land in the area. Recommendations written into the CWPPs and the FRWRM funding were combined with U.S. Forest Service management goals to construct the scope of the North Routt GNA project.
Project proposals and public meetings started in 2019, and work is now underway on 70 acres at the northern project point near Columbine Cabins, a popular recreation destination. The second phase is under contract with a timber operator. Together, these will improve forest health on about 300 acres. Cut timber will be taken to two local mills, supporting a crucial piece of the forestry process.
“To be sustainable in the long run, we’ve got to have outlets for the wood when it’s cut,” Twitchell said. “We have two mills in this area, and they are important tools to how we are able to treat the forests.”
In an area where dead, unusable timber covers much ground, sometimes the CSFS pays contractors $2,000-$5,000 per acre to remove unhealthy trees from the landscape. This project is proving vastly different, so far generating $60,000 in revenue.
A separate Bureau of Land Management project is slated for the summer of 2024, within a mile of the North Routt GNA, setting another puzzle piece in place for a landscape-scale healthier forest for residents and visitors.
“We are looking at landscapes now for larger project areas. We have to be smart about where we work and how we work,” Twitchell said. “GNA is a tool in our toolbox. We and the U.S. Forest Service have different missions, but we are working toward the same goals to create healthier forests at a faster pace. The GNA is allowing us to work toward our common goals together.”
Inside the North Routt County GNA
Five areas of planned treatments over the next 5-7 years will connect the North Routt County GNA work to previously completed wildfire mitigation work, creating a more fire-resistant landscape for the area around Steamboat Lake and Hahn’s Peak Village.
Forestry work within the North Routt project is focused on three main goals:A variety of treatment methods will be used during the project:
- removing dead and dying timber on U.S. Forest Service lands to create fuel breaks around WUI areas)
- reducing hazardous fuel loading
- increasing the ability for firefighters to fight fires near private property
- mechanical cutting
- mastication
- handwork with chainsaws
- prescribed fire will reduce the hazardous fuels left after contractor operations