Basalt inks contract for ‘fuels mitigation’ set to begin next week

Basalt Town Council finalized a contract on Tuesday evening with Summitt Forests Inc. for “fuels mitigation,” or vegetation thinning and removal in the interest of fire prevention in the Basalt area. 

The project will take place on 52-acres of land divided over 16-different parcels owned by several different landowners, including Basalt, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Holy Cross Energy, and some local homeowners associations. 

The project area is north and northeast of the town, in the hilly areas above the town. 

The costs of the project will be shared by all of those who own parcels in the affected areas, along with an $88,000 grant from the Colorado State Forest Service. The total cost of the project is just short of $404,000. 

“We’ve got three major prescriptions that we’re considering, the majority of which is actually thinning,” said Chris Beiser, Basalt arborist and horticulturalist, at the Tuesday meeting. “We’re talking about producing a space of between 20 to 25 feet between individual canopies, both individual large specimen trees as well as clusters of a range of trees.”

Cut trees will be stacked in designated locations and will remain there for a drying period of one to two years, at which point they will be burned in a prescribed burn conducted with the help of the Roaring Fork Fire District.

Along with fire prevention and management for future potential fires, vegetation thinning also aims to promote forest health with broader speciation and variation in tree sizes, which can be beneficial for native animals and vegetation. 

“If you went and looked at that out in the field, you’ve actually got relatively low Pinyon-Juniper canopy cover,” Besier explained on Tuesday. “We’re actually going to return that back to the historically native sagebrush land to encourage native grouse fluoration there.”

The fuels mitigation is expected to begin Monday, Nov. 17, and run until early December. Weather may affect crews’ ability to work and could therefore cause the project to run later than currently projected. Work is expected to take place from 7 a.m. until dusk, according to a press release the town distributed to announce the upcoming work. 

The press release also stipulated that the Basalt Mountain Trail System will be closed during this time for safety.