USFS faces open chief positions, starts pile burning

At the March MAST meeting Chris Fogle, one of two U.S. Forest Service Battalion Chiefs in our Ranger District, reported that currently the Division Chief position is open, along with two other Battalion Chief positions.

Through the winter, USFS continue to staff three engines, a water tender, and a hand crew on the Hill. Helicopters, on contract, will return in mid-May. The helicopters are used to fight fires with water drops, deliver hand crews, and use a “helitorch” and other tools to start backfires and prescribed burns.

With the fire season lasting until February, fuel moisture is still critically low. Fogle explained that even after rain and snow, dormant vegetation does not take that moisture up and remains hazardous. This has delayed the beginning of pile burning.

The Forest Service has been working on burning the piles around their stations at Cranston, Kenworthy, Alandale, and Vista Grande, and were burning that day at Keenwild. Their main project for this winter will be piles along Pine Cove’s shaded fuel break, east and west of the repeater site. The Forest Service is engaged in a “force wide”: community defense project, addressing “key fuel breaks across the entire forest,” including the San Gabriel and San Jacinto mountains. He added that these projects must all go through the NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act) process, “which does take some time.” Fogle also mentioned ongoing maintenance of the main firebreaks protecting Idyllwild: Strawberry, West Ridge, South Ridge, Pine Cove and Rouse, noting that some date back to 1968.

For updates on USFS prescribed burns, visit their facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/SanBernardinoNF