Near Ashland, Ore — We’re still months away from fire season, but the preparation never stops.
“Fire’s a part of the ecosystem, and it needs to be, so we’re just reintroducing it but on our own terms,” said Kit Colbenson, Burn Boss for the Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest.
For the National Forest Service, fire season never ends.
“We’re just kind of going back through where they’ve lit to see how well the piles are burning,” said Colbenson.
Colbenson is the Burn Boss, overseeing more than 80 acres of prescribed burns in the Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest.
“Our main focus is anywhere that a fire may get out from the forest and threaten private property, private lands,” said Colbenson.
It’s part of a years long process, identifying problem areas, clearing brush, burning, then burning again.
“When we have wildfires come through here there’s less fuels for them to burn and it also makes it easier for us to control the fires when they come through here.”
The conditions have to be perfect to ensure the public is safe and smoke free.
“Some of the elements we look at is what is our smoke going to do, what direction, is it going to lift out of town or is it going to settle, we don’t want to send smoke into town if at all possible,” Said Colbenson.
With rain & snow in the forecast, burns crews only had a small window to burn, one they took full advantage of this week.
“This current system that we’re expecting to come in will reduce the amount of time we’ll spend mopping it up after we’re done here,” he said.
The National Forest Service, with help from Grayback Forestry plans to continue burns as long as the weather allows, with a goal of over 1000 acres cleared by summer.
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