Routt County residents are familiar with the concept that wildfires are a growing problem during hotter, drier summer conditions. What residents may not know is that the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council is working with the U.S. Forest Service to restore areas that have burned heavily over the past five years, such as Big Red Park in North Routt and Silver Creek at Rabbit Ears Pass.
Our forests provide services that support our daily lives in the Yampa Valley, including regulating water quality, regulating stream flows to ensure a consistent supply of drinking water, providing habitat for wildlife, sequestering carbon, and controlling erosion. These are just a few of the key reasons that underscore the importance of restoring and regenerating our forests.
If wildfires do not restore forests to burned areas, we can expect more invasive species, more extreme flooding and debris flows, more erratic river flows, poorer water quality, changes in wildlife habitat and migration patterns, and tremendous loss of carbon sequestration. Recovery from severe wildfires is critical to our well-being as residents of Routt County.
The first step to ensuring future reforestation after a forest fire is to conduct regeneration studies.
These surveys are designed to identify sites that are not regrowing naturally and require active tree planting to restore their forest state. By walking through the burn areas, data is collected at many sites along the burn scar to identify native seedling growth, which sites are not regrowing, whether invasive species are present, and the likelihood of future tree growth based on the presence of cones or living trees as a seed source. These surveys are critical to analyzing which parts of the forest are at risk of not returning to their forest state and require active restoration efforts to recover.
Regeneration surveys help us understand the impacts of fires and, more importantly, figure out how we can help. Once regeneration surveys are complete, Aaron Lutz, a forester with the U.S. Forest Service, analyzes the data to prioritize sections of the fire that need planting and active restoration. From there, the ball starts rolling as federal regulations are reviewed and permits are issued. Generally, the logistics and permits for plantings take about two to three years, so completing these surveys as quickly as possible is incredibly important to the timeline of our response.
Although the road to forest ecosystem recovery is long, there is good news: you can help. YVSC partners with the U.S. Forest Service to provide volunteers to conduct regeneration surveys throughout the summer. Every Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. through September, community members are encouraged to join the Yampa Valley Climate Crew and collect data on field days at Big Red Park and Silver Creek.
If you would like to register or have any questions, please contact Dakota Dolan at [email protected].
