Our next meeting on Tuesday, June 28 will be a tour of mechanical thinning and prescribed fire on the Dairy Project. Jason McGovern, Prescribed Fire and Fuels Specialist on the Emigrant Creek Ranger District, will lead the tour.

We will meet at the Emigrant Creek Ranger District Office in Hines at 8:15 AM and leave at 8:30 AM. We will be touring on some rough roads that those with low clearance vehicles may not want to take their rigs on. The Forest Service will have some rigs availablefor anyone that needs a ride. Let Jason know at jmcgovern@fs.fed.us if you would like to ride in a Forest Service van.

Our itinerary will look something like this:
1. Leave at 8:30. It will take about an hour to get to the site.
2. We will start with a stop at Dairy 109, a unit that was burned 3 years ago. Both mechanical thinning and Rx fire only examples are provided at this stop.
3. A recently burned aspen site
4. A mechanical treatment (non-commercial) thinned and piled and then Rx fire
5. A recently burned site with Rx fire only
6. If time allows, we can visit an area that was burned 5 years ago, but the return will be around an hour plus

Jason said, “The Dairy area is unique in that we are close to having 10k acres of contiguous prescribed fire treatment. This in my opinion is why it is successful, spatially connected and large enough to affect the landscape.”

This should be a good tour and we hope you can join us. Bring a lunch and plenty of drinking water. We encourage anyone who has an interest in timber harvest, forest restoration, or small diameter timber sales to participate.