Payson Roundup LOCAL Friday, August 7, 2015
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Ranger District continues thinning vital buffer zones From page 1A Creek, cutting brush and saplings that have grown back since a previous thinning project in the area. “In the beginning, we were told we’d never be able to accomplish this. But you have to have the desire and the gumption. It’s just a lot of effort. But we’ll do whatever work it takes to get this going,” Nunley said. About $1.2 million from the latest grant will go to do the first-entry thinning of 1,200 acres along the Control Road — one of the last projects needed to complete an initial 100-yard-deep buffer zone around virtually all of the communities in Rim Country. In those buffer zones, the remaining trees should be about 25 feet apart, without interlocking branches. Crews will remove more than 80 percent of the trees, mostly leaving ponderosa pines more than 12 inches in diameter. They will pile up the trees cut, from which residents with a permit can eventually pull firewood. The fuel reduction cut does not rely on selling the timber, as in a thinning cut undertaken as part of a timber sale or through the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI). In the maintenance areas first cut five or 10 years ago, crews will trim the brush and small trees and scatter them across the forest floor. This will ensure that a ground fire won’t climb up into the lower branches of the trees. The decade-long effort has now created a thinned buffer zone around most communities where fire crews can safely make a stand to save the neighborhoods in the event of a crown fire in the surrounding, still thickly overgrown forest. Tree densities throughout most of Rim Country have grown from perhaps 50 per acre to more like 800 per acre in the past century, with disastrous consequences for forest health and wildfire risk. Ultimately, Nunley wants to clear trees and brush for up to a half mile from most subdivisions. This will allow the Forest Service to make much greater use of controlled burns to thin much larger areas, since the wider buffer zones will protect the communities. It will take roughly another $50 million to finish the job, he said. But even the 100-yard buffer zone most communities now enjoy gives firefighters a fighting chance to save homes if a major wildfire comes roaring in out of the forest. “I need a safe place for my firefighters to make a stand,” said Nunley. The 19 Prescott firefighters who died fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire got trapped in a canyon choked with thick brush as they tried to make their way to protect Yarnell. The firefighters killed in the Dude Fire
20 years ago also died trying to protect a subdivision as the fire advanced. The fuel treatments should eventually dovetail with the timber-sale approach that lies at the heart of the 4FRI, which envisions thinning 300,000 acres in the next 10 years. The 4FRI approach relies on selling the wood to pay for the thinning operation, unlike the roughly $1,000-per-acre cost of Nunley’s fuel treatments on a first-entry cut. The 4FRI contractor cuts trees up to 18 inches in diameter and relies on assorted, specialized heavy machinery, rather than crews with chain saws. The 4FRI contractor turns the larger trees into lumber and the small trees and brush into things like compost, wood pellets and biomass for power plants. Nunley said a timber company could not only cut on the edge of the buffer zones, but go into the buffer zones to cut many of the trees in the 12- to 18-inch diameter class left standing in the fuel treatment. Already, Nunley has seen changes in the previously thinned buffer zones. The removal of the tree thickets has not only allowed the grass to grow, it’s attracted more wildlife. Moreover, the remaining trees get more water — which means they’re more resistant to things like bark beetles, lightning strikes and fire. “Here’s a good example,” he said. “Couple of months ago in a buffer zone southwest of Pine, we had a lightning strike, that set a dead tree on fire. Couple of days later, a homeowner went walking in the woods and saw it burning on the ground. The fire had been burning for three days and had stayed right there.” He noted, “We see a lot more wildlife (in the buffer zones). They like the open areas and when that brush grows back in, it’s very nutritious. We’ve seen grass grow back in some areas — but in other areas there’s no seed bank in the soil for the grass to come back.” He said when they started, fire crews got 20 or 30 calls a year in the Whispering Pines-Verde Glen area to put out fires caused by lightning strikes as they began to spread. “But this year, we haven’t had one call in that area. Something’s changed. We still get the lightning, but we’re not seeing that tremendous amount of burning.” He has even noted a decline in bark beetle infestations in the cleared areas, despite the presence of the slash piles that should attract the tree-killing beetles. He suspects that the remaining trees once freed from the competition with the thickets can produce enough sap to repel the beetles — which lay their eggs under the bark of the big trees. “It’s fun to see the change,” he said. “It’s fun to go out and say, ‘We might have made a difference here.’”
Apply for free, reduced school meals The Payson Unified School District will offer free and reduced-price lunches on all of its campuses again this year by participating in the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. The meals cost $1.80 for breakfast and between $2.55 and $2.60 for lunch depending on grade level. Depending on income, the meals may be free or cost just 30 to 40 cents. Children from families with incomes at or below the Federal Income Eligibility Guidelines can qualify for the free or reducedprice lunch. That includes a child who is homeless, in a foster home, a migrant or participating in a Head Start or Even Start pre-Kindergarten program. Otherwise, household size and
income criteria determine eligibility. Children can get free or reduced-price meals if the household’s gross income falls at or below the limits on the Federal Income Eligibility Guideline chart. Parents or guardians can fill out an application form. Application forms are being distributed to all households and are in each school administration office, online http://www.pusd. k12.az.us/pages/Payson_USD_10/ Departments/Food_Service or at the District Administration office. Families can apply for benefits at any time. If a household member becomes unemployed or if the household size increases, parents or guardians should contact the school or Tracy Frandsen at any time to request an application.
Child on bike runs into car by
Alexis Bechman
roundup staff reporter
A 10-year-old boy escaped serious injury Thursday afternoon after riding his bicycle into the side of a pickup truck, police say. The boy was riding his bike around 4 p.m. in the Pineview Manor Apartment complex in the 300 block of South Clark Road, off East Bonita Street, when he rode out of the complex. Without stopping, the boy ran straight into the side of a truck heading south on Clark
Road. The driver immediately stopped, said Police Chief Don Engler. The child was not wearing a helmet. Although the child did not have outward injuries, paramedics took the boy to the hospital concerned he could have internal bleeding or some other injury. It appears he was not seriously injured, Engler said. “It could have been much worse,” he said.
QUALIFYING INCOME LEVELS Household Size Yearly Income 1 $15,301 2 $20,709 3 $26,117 4 $31,525 5 $36,933 6 $42,341 7 $47,749 8 $53,157
When known to Payson Unified School District, households will be notified of their children’s eligibility for free meals if they are members of households receiving assistance from the: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR); or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) may be, but they will need to turn in an application including household size and total income. The district will also contact families if it has information the child is eligible as a result of being in certain categories. If any children are not listed on the notice of eligibility, the household should contact Frandsen or the school. Households notified of their children’s eligibility must contact the school if the household chooses to decline the free meal benefits.
Pete Aleshire/Roundup
The photo on the left shows the buffer zone around a subdivision near Whispering Pines, cleared as part of a $40 million effort by the Payson Ranger District of the Tonto National Forest. Tree densities in the cleared buffer zone are probably about 100 per acre. Above is a photo of an uncleared stand of trees atop the Rim, where the dense stands not only remain vulnerable to crown fires but to bark beetles, drought and other problems. Densities in this stand probably exceed 1,000 trees per acre.
Communities protected The following communities will benefit from the Payson Ranger District’s use of $1.9 million for thinning projects:
This map outlines the areas near Tonto Village, mostly along the Control Road, where the Forest Service will spend $1.2 million to make a first-entry fuels reduction thinning cut to reduce fire danger.
Payson, Flowing Springs, Mesa del Caballo, Wonder Valley, Star Valley, Tonto Creek Estates, Zane Grey Estates, Verde Glen, Rim Trail Estates, Shadow Rim, Washington Park and Whispering Pines, Pine and Strawberry, Arrowhead Estates, and the Tonto Natural Bridge. The projects will also improve the health of Ellison Creek, East Verde Headwater, Horton-Tonto and Christopher creeks.