My Current Project:
To put together a video that shows how to reduce the amount of ground fuel in the roadless forest to the west of our community. It will be a proposal to use trail-building crews to construct fireline around a LARGE canyon, following the ridge top, making a continuous loop around the area to be burned.
When winter comes, use a helicopter to drop fire down into all these places with excessive ground fuel. Let it burn until the snow starts to melt, and then come back and burn from the line you constructed, backing down into the canyon. This will get rid of the heavy fuel that leads to long range spotting, because the ladder fuels under the trees will be gone.
This site is dedicated to developing a plan to build a defensible buffer zone from fire, south and west of Ruidoso, NM,.
My proposal is just that. We need the expertise, and input from the public to get it right. The actual location of the control line along the boundary, needs to be negotiated. Ultimately, it’s a good idea to go into the field and decide the location.
The USFS, plan, found a route through Mescalero land on the west side of Ruidoso. It’s a better route for line construction, but, spotting over the line IS always expected and access to these spots with water and equipment will be difficult. Whereas, if the line is at the edge of our urban interface, we have many roads and access routes, or can build them to get equipment in to catch spot fires.
Bill