Kaibab National Forest

An 18-acre unit of hand piles is scheduled to be burned on Monday February 22, near the top of Bill Williams Mountain adjacent to the city of Williams.

Deep snow still present after a recent storm has presented Fire managers on the south zone on the Kaibab National Forest a perfect opportunity to remove these slash piles located in steep terrain with very little risk of spread or control problems. The burning will take place on the upper 1/3 of the mountain near forest road 111, also known as the Bill Williams Lookout Road.

Fire managers on the south zone on the Kaibab National Forest will be taking advantage of winter weather conditions and will continue igniting slash piles on both the Williams and Tusayan Ranger Districts Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

Approximately 200 acres of hand piles will be burned about 3 miles southeast of Tusayan on the east side of state route 64. Another 200 acres of larger machine piles will also be consumed near Hardy Hill on forest road 141 near Spring Valley on the west side of Sitgreaves Mountain.

Fire crews on the Williams Ranger District on the Kaibab National Forest will be igniting about 320 acres of machine piles beginning Thursday morning of this week along the south side of forest road 141 just east of Highway 64 and  the Red Lakes area near Hardy Hill.

Snowy weather conditions are forecasted to arrive in the local area Wednesday night providing ideal conditions to eliminate these large piles in the area. Operations are expected to last a single day and be completed on this unit of piles by late Thursday afternoon.

As part of the continuing effort to provide forest users as much safe access as possible to areas on the North Kaibab Ranger District, the Forest Service has again reduced the Mangum Fire closure near Jacob Lake.  Although Forest Roads 462 and 461 must remain closed for public safety, Forest Roads 22 and 423 have been opened with short-term closures possible if weather conditions warrant. 

This week, National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) fire managers, working together as the North Zone Interagency Fire Management Program, plan to begin conducting pile burns north of the Grand Canyon.  Hand piles composed of woody debris are located near the NPS developed zone at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park as well as around Big Saddle, Demotte, and Jacob Lake on USFS administered lands.