Fire over Slumgullion

Forest Service ends a season of controlled burns

Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer

The Gunnison National Forest fuels crew is nearing the end of 2 months-long winter burn season, spending the last few days a little over 10 miles south of Lake City, in the Lash Tree Salvage Unit. Lash tree is a 500 acre, three-year logging unit over Slumgullion Pass on which tree removal was completed just last fall.

On Jan. 23, the Times joined the crew near Slumgullion.

The Forest Service burn district includes Saguache, Gunnison and Hinsdale counties.

Dave Carr, fuels specialist at the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests esti- mated that the 6-12 person crew burned over 1,200 piles over nearly 3,000 acres this season alone. The crew has to stop burning in January because larger piles can smolder for months, and need to be extinguished before the snow retreats.

The piles of timber up Slumgullion are made by machines, and unlike the hundreds of smaller hand piles that were visible over Monarch Pass at the beginning of winter, these can get up to 20 feet high and 50 feet wide. The three-person crew traveled up to the logging site — and between piles — in a snowcat, allowing them to traverse quickly over the snow.

The crew uses red, metal drip torches and flammable gel to ignite the piles. The drip torches have a three-to-one gas to diesel mixture; the gas gives flammability and the diesel prolongs the burn time, Carr said. The gel packets are a mix of powdered aluminum, diesel and gas. The crew ignited the gel and placed it inside dry pockets in the piles, surrounded by brush, sticks and logs of various sizes. Once sparks are members move onto the next pile.

No more than 30 minutes after first ignition, the crew drove back by the piles. Some were still smoking, struggling to catch while others sent bright orange licks of flames 50 feet in the air, throwing a wall of thermal radiation so intense the crew can’t open the snowcat doors. These piles take anywhere from days to months to burn to completion.

Carr said crew members will return in the early spring to check on the piles, move soil around and reseed the plots. In just a few years, it will be hard to tell that a occurred there, Carr said.

(Abby Harrison can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or abby@gunnisontimes.com.)