USFS Promotes Natural Regrowth at Lake Christine Burn Scar with Local Seedlings

The Lake Christine Fire burned more than 12,000 acres on Basalt Mountain in 2018, prompting the evacuation of more than 2,000 people and leaving a lasting scar across the landscape.

At nearly 10,000 feet above sea level on Basalt Mountain, it's easy to see where the fire left its mark if you look up.

But if you look down, you'll see a lot of green.

Sarah Pearson, regeneration coordinator for the White River National Forest, uses her hoe to point out tiny shoots that will one day become spruce trees.

“Natural regeneration is what it’s about here,” she said. “So there’s a little bit in the portions that didn’t burn very hot.”

The White River National Forest is completing a major burned area restoration project, replanting nearly 80,000 trees in areas that are not experiencing natural regeneration and need a little extra help.

What makes these plants special is that they are all local, coming from other places in the forest, primarily from the Roaring Fork Valley. Pearson says this will hopefully increase their chances of survival.

“The cool thing is that they are genetically adapted to the local climate and all growing conditions because I try to plant them in a similar climate to where they were collected,” she declared.

The cones from the plants were harvested in 2022 and have been growing for about a year at Bessey Nursery in Nebraska, where the Forest Service collects and plants all kinds of seeds. This gives these trees a head start in life, but it's a long process to get them in the ground.

“These were actually put in the boxes on October 31, 2023,” Pearson recounted. “So they were frozen in these boxes all winter, and then a few weeks ago they started thawing them out so we could plant them.”

By the time Pearson and his team start putting them in the ground, they are six inches tall.

So why does the Forest Service keep all these seeds for years and years? And why did they wait six years after the fire to start planting?

Pearson and other officials say they get asked that question all the time, because the public is so ready to see an area recover after a fire. But fire is a natural part of the landscape, even if the Lake Christine fire was caused by man. Managers like Pearson want to see natural regrowth before entering this field.

“I think some studies have been done that if you wait five to six, seven years after the burn, your survival may be a little bit better than if you do it sooner,” she said.

But many variables can affect whether a plant reaches adulthood. Not the least of which is human-caused climate change, which brings its own set of impacts, from hotter, drier temperatures at higher altitudes to hotter, more severe, and more severe wildfires. fast.

“Twenty or 30 years ago, we didn't really have big fires on the White River (national forest),” Pearson recalled. “Actually, when I started in Dillon in the '90s, all the engine people called it 'the asbestos forest' because nothing ever burned. But of course things have changed. »

Pearson's team does its best to ensure the survival of crooked poles and spruce trees by making sure to plant them in locations they will like.

“We have a distance more or less to these pies here, and here. Y yo ya me estoy fijando de ese pino. I want to see the distance. The other is there.

It's Pedro Cruz, one of the guys here who plants trees. He said they look for a distance of about 10 feet between each tree and consider where existing trees already are.

It will be about a century before one of these plants begins to resemble its larger neighbors, which are 50 or 60 feet tall. This is the kind of work that requires a long-term vision.

Pearson has worked in reforestation for decades and she's used to the scale of her work…but others aren't.

“Sometimes people ask, 'Why do you like it?' “And I'm like, 'Well, you know, in 100 years it's going to look great,'” she said. “These people say, 'Well, I don't care. I don't I won't be alive. Then it's “yes, but future generations”. I mean, sometimes you have to think beyond yourself.

The Forest Service plans to plant an additional 60,000 plants in the spring of next year. These future trees will be in a much better place if these seedlings can make it through another fire season unscathed.