The Black Mesa Ranger District is planning prescribed fire pile burns across 10 acres at Camp Shadow Pines, which is approximately 3.5 miles southwest of Heber. Pile burning is to reduce hazardous fuel accumulation returning the landscape to a more fire-resistant condition in line with the Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy. Encroaching pine and juniper were thinned to decrease tree density and canopy cover, and to prevent regrowth of new pine and juniper to restore the fuel type to grassland, its original fire regime. A ‘fire regime’ is the term given to the general pattern in...