Ashland, Ore. — Smoke was pouring into the sky from the hills above Ashland this afternoon, but it was all part of a plan.
It’s the first prescribed “under burn” in the Ashland Watershed and it took years of planning by the Ashland Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project.
It was a perfect day for a fire, at least a controlled one. Thursday was selected by members of the Ashland Forest Resiliency Project
“Today is a day to celebrate because we are returning fire to the watershed to help protect the community and nature,” said Darren Borgias from the Nature Conservancy, “what makes this day and this prescribed burn different from others, is that it more closely mimics a wildfire a low grade wildfire that will help the ecology of the land. And this is much more similar to the actual fires that we had in the forests like we have here in the watershed.”
Those fires burnt all the underbrush, needles and saplings and left the bigger trees unharmed.
“By working with fire under our terms we get benefits not only for the community in terms of community safety and better protection for the water supply and the City of Ashland, but benefits for wildlife that depend on these open type forests,” continued Borgias.
This is the largest burn planned in the Ashland Watershed for this spring as they expect conditions to be too dry in the coming weeks.
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