With lower temperatures in the forecast, the U.S. Forest Service has begun planning for prescribed burns in Wyoming. The Medicine Bow National Forest in southeast Wyoming will burn about 2,000 acres across the Pole Mountain area east of Laramie.
“Prescribed burning is a part of our normal program of work,” said Aaron Voos, the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland public affairs specialist. “It's a very valuable tool that we have to treat and be proactive with management of the landscape.”
According to Voos, the goal of the Pole Mountain burn is to reduce overgrown vegetation so less fuel is available to burn during a wildfire. But there are also other reasons for reducing vegetation.
“When we do treatments across the landscape, we're looking to sometimes change the vegetation. Maybe it's undesirable. You have more juniper in the area than historically should be there,” Voos said as an example.
There are varying levels of prescribed burning agencies use, depending on what they’re trying to clear and what time of year it is. Broadcast burning, which will be used in the Pole Mountain burns, is used to treat larger areas. It’s meant to both improve vegetation and reduce dangerous fuel buildup.
Pile burning, on the other hand, is one of the smaller scale methods. Wildland firefighters pile up hazardous fuels like dead or overgrown vegetation and burn them, usually during winter when there’s snow on the ground.
Bridger-Teton National Forest also released its prescribed burning plans for this fall and winter, including both pile and broadcast burning for the west zone of the forest. Goals include reducing hazardous fuels, improving habitat and restoring fire-adapted ecosystems.
The exact dates for the burns have not been announced and will be dependent on the weather. Updates will be posted on Forest Service social media pages or via news releases on local Forest Service websites.
Other agencies, like the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and State Prescribed Fire Councils, also conduct prescribed burns. More information about them can be found on their websites.
