What is the Bailey Healthy Forests Initiative
We are a group of Partners helping to implement a variety of forest & river health Projects.
In the absence of fire, intensive mechanical treatments needed to keep ponderosa pine forests healthy
Given the desire to keep fire out of some forest ecosystems where human developments are in harms way, forest logging and thinning projects can help keep trees healthy.
A Note from Aspen Hills
Winter is here and its a great time to look at where we are and what lies ahead in our wildfire mitigation efforts.Here is a pretty comprehensive article (albeit long) on the current state of affairs in Colorado. http://www.postindependent.com/news/9232580-113/beetle- forest-colorado-pine There is a good section on a community that achieved the Firewise Community designation and noticed better insurance rates and improved property values, as a result.It also discusses Gov. Hickenloopers proposal to increase taxes to property owners in the WildlandUrban-Interface…us.The article is from the Glenwood Springs/Grand Junction paper, so it doesn’t mention the terrific work of the Coalition for the Upper South Platte, which is regional. But our partnership with CUSP has been instrumental in our designation as a Firewise Community, and we look forward to increased cooperation with them, as well as our partners at the Colorado State Forest Service.Since our community meeting last Spring, we have added 3 more property owner’s to our grant program. This brings the total number of properties signed up to 35 out of 63 properties in Aspen Hills. In addition, we now have a better way of communication between property owners for items of community interest, thanks to Vicki Rector!This year the property owners that signed up to have their work partially or fully contracted will be getting that work done thanks to our friends at CUSP, who will be overseeing the projects. For the rest of us doing our own work, we have until Feb. 2015 to complete the work in order to qualify for the grant. Winter is a good time to cut, although it poses some unique problems, especially when moving felled trees in heavy snow on steep slopes!I look forward to working with all of you in the upcoming year, especially in getting out the information on filling out the required paperwork and keeping track of time for the grant. As you know there is a push in the U.S. Congress to make more funds available for Wildfire Mitigation and both parties seem to be able to agree on that. I will try to keep track of and publicize any future grants as they become available.Please have a wonderful Holiday Season and Merry Christmas!Very Respectfully,Greg Jones
Udall urges Farm Bill Committee to include forest health provisions
December 5, 2013
Udall Leads Bipartisan Effort Pressing Farm Bill Conferees to Include Critical Job-Creation, Wildfire Prevention Provisions in Legislation
Good Neighbor Authority, Stewardship Contracting Authority Essential to Strengthening Western Forests, Businesses, CommunitiesMark Udall, who serves on the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, led a bipartisan group of senators today urging the Farm Bill conference committee to include critical forest health provisions in the final legislation. Udall and the bipartisan coalition said Good Neighbor Authority and Stewardship Contracting – which allows agencies to work collaboratively across state and local boundaries to reduce wildfire risks and promote public-private partnerships to manage forest health, respectively – are essential for Colorado and western communities.
“We urge the conferees to reauthorize and expand Good Neighbor Authority nationally and to permanently reauthorize Stewardship Contracting Authority,” Udall and the senators wrote in their letter. “These programs will streamline federal funds and increase the role of state and local agencies in federal forest management, while keeping our lands healthy, protect communities and save money in the long-term by mitigating our risks for catastrophic wildfires.”
Stewardship Contracting allows the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to enter into long-term contracts to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health. Stewardship contracts create jobs by allowing the federal government to partner with private businesses to clear brush, produce timber products, generate biomass energy, and strengthen forest health. The authority has been used to treat more than 545,625 acres nationwide.
Good Neighbor Authority, which is currently only allowed in Colorado and Utah, allows state foresters to work across local and state boundaries to perform forest, rangeland and watershed restoration services on National Forest System and BLM land.
Udall has introduced stand-alone legislation that would permanently reauthorize Stewardship Contacting authority and successfully fought to move legislation that would expand Good Neighbor Authority. Udall has also been a strong proponent of the Senate’s bipartisan Farm Bill and has partnered with the Colorado Farm Bureau and the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union to push the U.S. House of Representatives to act and pass a deficit-reducing Farm Bill.
U.S. Senators John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) also signed the letter.
To read the bipartisan letter, click HERE.
Wilderness Area Funding
The National Forest Foundation’s (NFF) 2014 Wilderness Stewardship Challenge program is making grants of up to $50,000 available to nonprofits to implement on-the-ground conservation projects that directly benefit National Forest Wilderness Areas. Proposals require a 1:1 nonfederal cash match and are due January 22, 2014. Find more information at www.nationalforests.org/conserve/grantprograms/ontheground/wilderness
The Human-Side of Restoration
The U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, and the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute at Colorado State University are launching the Human-Side of Restoration Webinar Series. The series will start on December 10, 2013 and will run through October 2014.
The series includes six webinars exploring:
- Political-social landscapes
- Collaboration
- Values and perceptions
- Different ways of knowing
- The restoration economy
Forest Cooperatives in Colorado
To find out more about forest collaboratives, check out this page on the nationwide Collaborative Forest Restoration Program.
The True Cost of Wildfires in the Western U.S.
The millions of dollars spent to extinguish large wildfires are widely reported and used to underscore the severity of these events. Extinguishing a large wildfire, however, accounts for only a fraction of the total costs associated with a wildfire event. Residents in the wild land-urban interface (WUI) are generally seen as the most vulnerable to fire, but a fuller accounting of the costs of fire also reveals impacts to all Americans and gives a better picture of the losses incurred when our forests burn.
Read the full report: The True Cost of Wildfire in the U.S.
Wildfire Cost-plus-Loss
US forests have been experiencing an escalating number of catastrophic-scale forest wildfires during the past 20 years. US Forest Service and other local, State, Federal, and Tribal government wildfire suppression costs have also escalated dramatically, to nearly $2 billion/year. Preliminary research indicates that USFS suppression costs may represent only 2-10% of the total “cost-plus-loss” damages to burned forests, however; recent public losses attributable to major forest wildfires may total $20 billion to $100 billion/year (or possibly more). The “U.S. Wildfire Cost-Plus-Loss Economics Project” was founded by the four authors and other interested citizen volunteers in early 2008 to better document and publicize these losses. A comprehensive peer-reviewed wildfire cost-plus-loss ledger has been developed by the authors, and funding is currently being sought to test its functionality for the 2009 fire season. This article is intended to bring the project to public attention, define the project’s purpose and intent, and to introduce a “one-pager’ checklist summary of the draft ledger that can be used by interested professionals, affected citizens, landowners, county officials, and others to begin a more comprehensive analysis of individual wildfires and their economic effects on US lives, livelihoods, structures, cultural and natural resources.
Read the full report – U.S. Wildfire Cost-Plus-Loss Economics Project: The “One-Pager” Checklist
The Full Cost of New Mexico Wildfires
Due to the amount of variables and range of effects, predicting the true cost of an individual wildfire is equally as difficult. Lack of tracked and available of data and the case-specific nature of each wildfire provides many challenges in overall cost estimation. However, a report including six wildfire case studies from the western United States by the Western Forestry Leadership Coalition estimated the true cost of a wildfire as compared to the suppression cost. These ratios of total cost to suppression cost from the study have been applied to tracked suppression costs of the larger wildfires (fires affecting more than 40,000 acres) in New Mexico over the last four years to develop a range of possible costs of these wildfires.
Read the full report: The Full Cost of New Mexico Wildfires
The Cost of the Schultz Fire
The Schultz Fire of 2010 burned just over 15,000 forested acres and caused the evacuation of hundreds of homes . Heavy floods followed the fire, resulting in extensive damage to property downstream from the charred hillsides. Nearly three years later, seasonal flooding is still a concern and residents continue to live under the threat of swift floodwaters that may carve unanticipated pathways through their sloping neighborhoods.
Read the full report: A Full Cost Accounting of the 2010 Schultz Fire