Burned trees in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (FS) Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests' (Apache National Forest) near the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Eastern AZ, on Dec. 7, 2018.
The Wallow Fire burned the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests near the White Mountains of Alpine, AZ, burned almost 539,000 acres, on May 29, 2011. Is the largest fire in state history. Started unintentionally by two campers.
The White Mountain Stewardship Project is credited with protecting homes and businesses in several communities, threatened by this fire. The 10-year thinning project started in 2004. Instead of spending millions of dollars on suppressing the fire, the project was aimed at proactively using resources to thin the forests by means of prescribed burns.
The high level of burn severity in this area has changed the vegetation type, making it hard for regeneration to occur.
The Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, administered as one national forest, encompasses over two million acres of magnificent mountain country in east-central Arizona.
The Apache National Forest is named after the tribes that settled in this area. It ranges in elevation from 3500 feet near Clifton to nearly 11,500 feet on Mount Baldy. The congressionally proclaimed Mount Baldy, Escudilla, and Bear Wallow wildernesses and the Blue Range Primitive Area make the Apache one of America's premier backcountry Forests. The Apache is also noted for its trout streams and high-elevation lakes and meadows.
The Sitgreaves National Forest was named for Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves, a government topographical engineer who conducted the first scientific expedition across Arizona in the early 1850s.
USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
For more information, please see:
www.usda.gov
www.fs.fed.us
www.fs.usda.gov/asnf
@usda
@forestservice. Original public domain image from Flickr