Fuels Management

Forest types throughout the inland western United States have undergone major structural and compositional changes as a result of fire suppression, logging and domestic grazing.  On many sites, desired conditions cannot be achieved without active management.  A well-designed forest restoration strategy allows land managers to achieve important objectives such increasing habitat for rare and declining species, protecting water resources and maintaining viewsheds.

 

Excessive forest fuels (live and dead vegetation biomass) represents one of the greatest threats to forests in the inland west.  Science-based fuels reduction builds resiliency of plant communities to disturbance processes (fire, insects/disease), and is an initial step towards restoring forest structure to highly desired conditions maintained by fire regimes prior to white settlement.

 

IRM offers a complete fuels management solution.  Our services include fuels and forest inventory, analysis of current fuels in relation to fire risk and desired ecosystem function, and development of fuel reduction prescriptions.  The method of fuel reduction incorporates multiple-resource concerns, while maximizing cost efficiency.

 

IRM has a suite of options available for on-the-ground implementation of fuels reduction plans including hand crews, and/or use of our Lightfoot^TM machine.  Please visit our Lightfoot^TM page to learn more about our fuels reduction brush mowing, piling, and shearing services.

 

 

PROJECT SHOWCASE

From June 2003 to August 2003, IRM completed a fuels reduction project for the Jicarilla - Apache Tribe in using its LightfootTM rubber tracked skid steer and feller-shearer system.   A 500' shaded fuel break over 3 miles long was created around a rural subdivision, which abuts the reservation.  The LightfootTM was used to shear Ponderosa pine and Gamble oak up to 12" DBH.  LightfootTM was subsequently fitted with a brush rake to build burn piles, which would be burned in the winter.

Ponderosa pine after fuels reduction thinning.

 

Jackson County Landowners Fuels Reduction, Jackson County Landowners   IRM has worked with numerous private landowners to reduce hazardous fuels around homes and other important structures using the LightfootTM system.  These sites are former pine and oak woodlands that have reverted to brush dominated communities due to past timber harvesting.  Prescriptions involve mowing heavy brush, seeding with native grasses, and reforesting the sites.

LightfootTM brushing overgrown manzanita