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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 - Reserve Print this page
The Reserve 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 Reserve CWPP uses the data and findings of the County CWPP to assess the wildfire threat and treatment priorities specific to the Reserve Wildland Urban Interface (WUI #s 178, 179, 187). 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.
The Reserve WUI #s 178, 179, 187 includes 50,620 acres in the Reserve valley along the San Francisco River and also in valleys areas to the north and Leggett drainage. Gila National Forest and private land is included within the boundaries. There are 615 E911 address sites recorded for this WUI which includes private homes, businesses, a US Forest Service administration site and miscellaneous buildings. The Cottonwood USFS campground is located on the Southwest end of the WUIs. Because of the higher concentration of homes and businesses and the density of some of the surrounding ponderosa pine and pinyon/juniper, the three WUIs rated 6th, 7th and 28th respectively in 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, except where there is no supplement necessary to the County CWPP.
Goals And Objectives
As a supplement to the County CWPP, the main objective of the Reserve 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 on 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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Reserve, 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. The first settlers were mostly ranchers. Logging in the surrounding Gila National Forest has supported in the past at least 2 large sawmills in the Reserve/Rancho Grande area. Cattle ranching and logging has been the main stay of the community in past years but environmental restrictions and lawsuits has greatly reduced activities in those two industries.
Except for the steeper inaccessible areas, all ponderosa pine areas on the National Forest in and surrounding the Reserve WUIs has been commercially harvested several times. There have been numerous non-commercial treatments also such as pre-commercial thinning and prescribed burns. Fire wood cutting has greatly altered the age class and species composition in wood cutter accessible areas.
Besides the meetings held around the County and one meeting at Community Center and Senior Center for the County Wildfire Protection Plan, the Reserve 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 numerous meetings with Reserve Ranger District personnel to coordinate the writing of this plan. Comments from all these meetings and contacts were incorporated in a rough draft. The rough draft was presented in public meetings at a Village Board meeting. It was also presented on June 16, 2007 at a Rancho Grande VFD meeting. 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). All data presented in this WUI is from data sources that pre-date the Martinez Fire of June, 2006. The Martinez fire was 7934 acres, all but 28 acres of which was within these WUI areas. Much of the fire burned relatively cool, but there was also lots of near 100% tree mortality in both ponderosa pine and PJ areas. No attempt was made to modify the data from the County CWPP to reflect the changes made by this fire, mostly because there is no data available on the new vegetative conditions. The Martinez Fire boundaries are shown on most of the maps displayed in Appendix 3. We know that the treatment needs within the Martinez Fire area are now very low priority and that is reflected in the proposed treatment priorities and projects for these WUI areas.
See Collaboration section above.
The Reserve WUI areas include the communities of Reserve, Rancho Grande, Middle Frisco and Lower Frisco. The Arizona/New Mexico state line lies about 10 miles to the west of these WUIs. Access to the area is best over Federal Highway 180 and State Highway 12. Most of the land is National Forest (89%). The WUI is within theReserve Ranger district on the Gila NF. The lowest elevation on the San Francisco River is 5560 ft. and only 1.8 miles from the highest point of 7520 ft. The area straddles the transition zone between ponderosa pine and pinyon/juniper types. 56%of the ponderosa pine area was in a "closed" canopy condition before the Martinez Fire which is estimated to have reduced it to about 40%.
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"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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