Fire fighting efforts at the Black Canyon National Park are winding down, however, rehabilitation efforts at the park near Montrose, Colorado are just ramping up.
KVNF Senior Reporter Lisa Young interviews team leaders TJ Clifford and Shauna Jensen for the US Forest Services - Burned Area Emergency Response Team, about the efforts to restore the park and protect the public.
THE BAER TEAM AND WHAT DO THEY DO
CLIFFORD: When we have a fire like the South Rim fire, we come in with a special team that has experts in the resources we think we might have a problem and need to assess. So, like in this case, we came with folks that are specialists in hydrology and soils and vegetation and wildlife. And we come with somebody that is good at putting together a plan.
WORK TO BEGIN SOON
CLIFFORD: There are some treatments that will have to get done as soon as possible. I mean, we still have potential for rains, so some of these treatments need to be done as quickly as as the funding starts getting received, so we could see some work within the next month as we gather the labor, um, and the equipment to do some of the larger treatments that may take more time. So that might start getting on the ground installed, maybe starting October first.
POTENTIAL DEBRIS AND ROCKFALL RISKS CONTINUE
CLIFFORD: I will say on the East Portal Road what we're seeing, both from debris flow hazards that USGS helped us put together, as well as our own watershed specialists, we are seeing that there is a substantial increase in risk. That risk is coming from in a couple spots, (and provide) high potential for debris flows in other locations... Essentially, there are sections of the East Portal Road that we are concerned about because of a substantial increase in rockfall potential.
GUNNISON RIVER WATER QUALITY
CLIFFORD: When it rains over the burned area, the ash is the first thing to come off and that ash comes with a lot of nutrients. So the water is going to look pretty dirty, pretty black. The second kind of thing that come down would be sediment. And then as your rainfall gets more substantial, more significant, that's when you would start seeing the increase of debris flows or rockfall, that kind of thing.
BURN SERVERITY AND CAMPGROUND DAMAGES
CLIFFORD: We're not seeing a lot of high burn severity, the soils haven't been affected across the board. Recovery of that vegetation is going to take a few years, but it's not lost. What you have lost is the overstory vegetation, you know, some of the scrub oak. And that will not be there for a number of years, but it should respond fairly well. Places like South Rim Campground have lost nearly all of their infrastructure, so loops A, B, and C on the campground will need to be replaced before that campground can even be opened at all, because at this point it really has no facilities.
