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Sat. Aug 21st 2010 Horse Mt. lVolunteer Fire Dept. "Open House" 8/21/2010  HORSE MT. VOLUNTEER
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OPEN HOUSE SATURDAY AUGUST 21, 2010 FROM 8:00 AM TO 2:30PM ACTIVITIES IN... Read more » |
Thu. Dec 31st 2009 Hazard Fuel Reductions - Landowner Acres 2009 Treatment Accomplishments for 2009. Read entire article under Files....Accomplishments Other. Read more » |
Wed. Aug 26th 2009 GRANTS are available for Hazard Fuel Reduction Projects Please contact Catron County Commission Office and ask for Linda Cooke. Application and Procedures are located... Read more » |
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CWPP - Luna Print this page
The Luna Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is a supplement to the Catron County Community Wildfire Protection Plan. The County CWPP completed in October, 2005 assesses the wildfire threat and hazardous fuels treatment priorities on a landscape scale. The Luna CWPP uses the data and findings of the County CWPP to assess the wildfire threat and treatment priorities specific to the Luna Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) (#167). Mitigation which will reduce the threat of wildfire damage to property, life and the land are proposed. Project scale data from the County CWPP and other sources is presented to aid in planning and design of the proposed projects.
Overview:
The Luna WUI #167 includes 26,054 acres in the Luna valley along the San Francisco River and some valley areas to the north. Gila National Forest and private land is included within the boundaries. There are 201 E911 address sites recorded for this WUI which includes private homes, businesses, a US Forest Service administration site and miscellaneous buildings. The Ditch USFS campground is located on the west end of the WUI. Because of the higher concentration of homes and businesses and the density of some of the surrounding ponderosa pine and pinyon/juniper, the Luna WUI rated third priority for treatment out of the 196 WUI areas in the County.
The County CWPP contains a thorough presentation of how determinations of values at risk, risk of occurrence and fire threat were used to locate the areas and values most at risk from catastrophic wildfire in the County and to prioritize treatment needs. Please refer to the County CWPP for more information. It is not the intent of this plan to duplicate the County CWPP. The general outline of the County CWPP is followed in this CWPP.
Goals And Objectives
As a supplement to the County CWPP, the main objective of the Luna CWPP is to propose work needed to reduce and mitigate fire threat. To accomplish this objective this supplement continues the collaboration started in the County CWPP, coordinating the needed work with past efforts, the various land owners and other interest.
The desired condition for WUI areas as stated in the County CWPP is obtainable: "The desired condition for WUI areas is a fire safe environment around protected improvements that will provide "defensible space" for firefighters in the event of a wildfire in the surrounding area". There is some high fuel loading, but not as many complicating factors such as high elevation forests, steep slopes, Wilderness and Roadless Study areas and environment concerns such as the Mexican spotted owl as there are in some of the WUI areas in the County. There is an excellent opportunity to obtain the desired condition for this WUI area.
No modifications were made in the WUI boundary as established in the County CWPP.
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Luna proper having first settled in the late 1800's is among the older communities in the County, however in the last 10-15 years considerable subdivision of land and building of new homes has occurred. Though the area is now quite accessible by highway 180, it hasn't always been so. The only connecting link between Luna and Reserve was the "Mail" trail over Luna divide for many years. The phone line to Luna was only a no. 9 wire strung through the trees as recent as the late 1970's'. Cattle ranching and logging has been the main stay of the community.
Except for the steeper areas, ponderosa pine areas on the National Forest in and surrounding the Luna WUI has been commercially harvested several times. There have been numerous non-commercial treatments also such as pre-commercial thinning and prescribed burns.
Besides the meetings held around the County and one meeting at Luna Fire Dept. for the County Wildfire Protection Plan on June 21, 2007, the Quemado Ranger District of the Gila National Forest has had extensive contact with the private land owners concerning treatment needs and proposed projects. There has been several meetings with Quemado Ranger District to coordinate the writing of this plan. Comments from all these meetings and contacts were incorporated in a rough draft. Comments on the rough draft were incorporated in a draft which was sent out for a last review by the involved agencies before the final was signed.
Most of the data used for this CWPP is from the County CWPP and was scaled to fit this WUI. Although the County CWPP was a landscape scale analysis, much of the data originated at a scale that fits the purpose of this CWPP (30x30 meter satellite imagery for example).
See Collaboration section above.
The Luna WUI area is about 15 miles northwest of Reserve and about 3-4 miles east of Arizona/New Mexico state line. Access to the area is best over US Highway 180. Most of the land is National Forest (75%). The WUI is within theQuemado Ranger district on the Gila NF.
Elevation in the WUI ranges from 6680 ft. on the east side to 7800 ft. on the west side so the area straddles the transition zone between ponderosa pine and pinyon/juniper types. As can be seen in the table below over ½ of the ponderosa pine area is in a "closed" canopy condition. It is believed that the amount of ponderosa pine is over estimated and the amount of grassland is under estimated by the re-regap satellite data. Some of the sparse tree/grassland areas are classed as ponderosa pine in regap whereas normally they would be classed as grassland, especially from the standpoint of expected fire behavior.
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| Healthy Forests |
"Communities for Healthy Forests" Mission Statement: Communities for Healthy Forests was founded to inform the public, natural resource managers and policy makers about catastrophic stand clearing events in public forests caused by fire, and other natural disasters. Communities for Healthy Forests exists to illustrate and explain the benefits of applying the best scientifically supported prescriptions for restoring health to overgrown forests and to rehabilitate severely damaged forests promptly following such events. For more information, see link below: www.communitiesforhealthyforests.org
"The Forest Factor": the factor in the carbon cycle, climate change, and our community. |
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