The Springerville Ranger District is planning prescribed fire pile burns across 500 acres within the West Escudilla pinyon-juniper treatment units. Encroaching junipers were thinned to decrease tree density and canopy cover, and to prevent regrowth of new juniper to restore the fuel type to grassland, its original fire regime. A ‘fire regime’ is the term given to the general pattern in which fires naturally occur in a particular ecosystem over an extended period of time.
Winter is an optimal time to burn piled slash and woody debris because snow on the ground keeps the fire from...