The North Jarvis Stand conversion Project
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story & photos by Maggie Rogers
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revention, preparedness, planning, and hazard fuel reduction are all components of a strategy to reduce the risk of wildland fires on military lands in Alaska. The BLM Alaska Fire Service (AFS) and U.S. ArmyAlaska (USARAK) are using a four-step mitigation strategy to protect communities near military property. The North Jarvis Stand Conversion Project at the Donnelly Training Area (DTA), southeast of Delta Junction, is a good example of the partnership between USARAK and AFS. Located in the Tanana Valley, the Delta Junction area has a rich fire history and has experienced many close calls from fires. Most of the land to the south of Delta Junction has previously burned, except the area surrounding the junction of Jarvis Creek and the Richardson Highway. It is only a matter of time until a fire will start in this mix of black spruce and hardwoods. Recognizing the high fire danger in this area and the potential for wildfire encroachment into developed areas, two years ago AFS and USARAK personnel began to assess options for reducing the risk. The original plan was to use prescribed fire to reduce the fuel load and continuity. After critical analysis, AFS experts decided that although a prescribed burn would meet their objectives, the window of opArea shear-bladed for moose habitat during phase three.
Above: Denali hotshot crew in the rain, leaving North Jarvis. The crews removed spruce from hardwood stands during phase one.
Right: Chart used in the planning phase, showing areas where the fuel load was to be reduced.
portunity for safely conducting the burn would be too small and risk of the fire escaping too great. The alternative eventually chosen was a five-year project that will mechanically convert a stand of black spruce to hardwoods. Although a hardwood stand will not necessarily stop a fire, it is less flammable than black spruce and creates a point at which an attack on the fire can be started. The area undergoing the stand conversion is about five miles long, 75–150 yards wide and was designed as a lazy curve to better blend with the surrounding landscape. A three-phase process designed for the area includes both community involvement and ecosystem manipulation. Part of phase one involved hand-thinning by AFS hotshot and emergency firefighter crews and a USARAK fuels crew to remove the spruce component from existing hardwood stands and to thin out a pure spruce stand at one end of the project. This stage was completed in August 2003. Thirty-seven acres were thinned and more than 630 piles of brush were left to be burned in winter 2003 or 2004. The conversion area is being treated as a test site. AFS and USARAK personnel will experiment with two different techniques, hydro-axing and shear-blading, to speed up the stand conversion process. This fall, the mechanical treatments