Spruces Campground Hazardous Tree Removal Project
The South Zone Fuels Management Program has been implementing hazardous tree removal in the Spruces Campground located in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Salt Lake County, UT on the Salt Lake Ranger District. District staff are using chainsaws to remove beetle infected and diseased conifers within the campground including the area south of the historic Civil Conservation Corps Cabin, and east of the ball field.
The objectives of this project are:
- Removal of hazard trees within a ten-foot area around the cabin, including trees that are contacting or that otherwise pose a danger to the cabin’s structural and/or historic integrity and defensible space around the cabin.
- Apply prescribed fire to remove the hazardous tree slash piles in the future.
- Minimize smoke impacts to firefighters, residences, and the recreating public.
These preemptive actions are management tools used to protect communities and other values from future uncharacteristic wildfires.
Over the next few years, hazardous tree removal will continue along with the creation of a shaded fuel break that will protect the historic structure and the surrounding campground as the project moves toward Donut Falls Trailhead. A shaded fuel breaks is defined as: “fuel breaks built in timbered areas where the trees on the designated break are thinned and pruned to reduce the fire potential yet retain enough crown canopy to make a less favorable microclimate for surface fires”.
For more information, please go to the forest website at https://www.fs.usda.gov/uwcnf
