Windy Gap

Wildfire Mitigation Phase I

 

Since 2019, Elkhorn Creek Forest Health Initiative (ECFHI) forest resilience and wildfire mitigation work has expanded out from the Ben Delatour Scout Ranch to include nearby private properties focused around the Magic Feather Collaborative Project, a US Forest Service-led cross-jurisdictional project which includes hand thinning and pile burning, mechanical treatments, and broadcast prescribed fire. The ECFHI project partners and collaborators now work not only in the Elkhorn Creek watershed, but also throughout northern Larimer County, and form a significant part of the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative’s North Larimer Operations Group, a regional subgroup of the Fireshed Collaborative focused on increasing pace and scale of forest management and prescribed fire. Future years will include projects focused around further US Forest Service large-scale forest management and prescribed fire throughout the Black Diamond Landscape Resiliency and Risk Reduction Project, covering some 250,000+ acres of Forest Service lands in the northern Larimer County landscape, north of the Poudre River and Cameron Peak Fire to the Wyoming state line, east to the foothills, and west to the Rawah Range of the Medicine Bow Mountains.

Windy Gap Project Phase 1

Unit Description for 2024

Phase 1 of the Windy Gap project includes 3 main cutting units on the west side of the Windy Gap neighborhood along Cougar Rock Rd. Forest type in these units is mainly ponderosa pine and dry mixed-conifer, with riparian species present near the South Fork Lone Pine Creek. These cutting units are directly to the east of the USFS-led cross-boundary Magic Feather broadcast prescribed fire, and will deepen the fire behavior reduction benefits of the prescribed fire project. The desired treatment area for phase 1 of the Windy Gap project is approximately 42 acres over two seasons of Youth Corps sawyer crew operations.

Description of Work and Order of Operations – Summer/Fall 2024

LCCC work schedule

Saw crew: July 22-September 26, 2024

Lands crew: July 29-August 1, 2024

The LCCC saw crew will begin work on the southernmost cutting unit on July 22 and work for ten weeks total for the 2024 season. The LCCC lands crew will assist with moving cut material during the second week of the project, starting July 29.

A hauling contractor will remove all cut material from the roadside and haul it off site.


Project Goals

The purpose of this project is to protect communities, firefighters, and critical water supplies by mitigating potential extreme wildfire behavior, working within the NCFC’s ribbon of priority treatment areas.

  • Objective 1 is to reduce extreme wildfire behavior metrics, such as rate of spread, spotting, fire intensity, and flame length, to improve firefighter safety and effectiveness. The project area is within the very high to extreme category in each of these metrics according to CO-WRA.

  • Objective 2 is to reduce the risk to the Lone Pine Creek watershed; the project area is within the highest risk category for watershed protection according to CO-WRA.

  • Objective 3 is to build upon the NCFC ribbon of treated areas in the northern Larimer County landscape. This project integrates with the USFS Magic Feather prescribed fire immediately adjacent to the west, the USFS Magic Sky cut/pile/burn treatment to the east, and the USFS Red Feather thinning project to the north, deepening the benefits of all the projects by strategically placing them on the landscape.

Treatments

  • Thin from below; Biomass removal

Total Acres: 42

Project Collaborators

  • Larimer County Conservation Corps (LCCC)

  • Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative

Funder(s)

Project Timeline

Summer/Fall 2024 & 2025