Approximately 15 Coconino National Forest employees from the Flagstaff Ranger District and Supervisor's Office met on a chilly morning in early December to pitch in on a project located within Mexican spotted owl (MSO) habitat. Protected areas like this one, officially called "Protected Activity Centers" (or PACs), are areas across the forest where breeding Mexican spotted owls engage in their core activities, including nesting, roosting, and foraging.

The day's project work was held at the Mayflower PAC not far from Mormon Lake, a corridor renowned for its incredible wildlife populations, including elk, bald eagles, mule deer, black bears, and goshawks. A portion of the MSO PAC had been hand-thinned with chainsaws in October 2017. In accordance with the treatment prescription, the thinned trees and branches had been scattered across the landscape so that later prescribed burn operations would return nutrients from the cut trees back to the soil. However, upon review by fire experts, it was determined the combination of existing dead and down trees (mainly from bark beetle die-off) and the thinned trees left too much fuel on the ground to safely burn in a small, six acre patch of the treated area.

Led by silviculturist Mark Nabel, the employees set out to hand pile the newly cut trees and branches. They created piles seven to eight feet high, which will be allowed to settle and dry for at least a year before being burned individually. Once the piles are burned, the rest of the area can be safely treated with prescribed fire. The stands treated within this PAC are dominated by ponderosa pine, but also feature a lot of oak trees, an important tree species for the Mexican spotted owl. While some live tree losses are normally expected and desirable during a prescribed burn, managers want to take care to minimize the loss of oaks, particularly larger oaks, within the MSO PAC.

Employee work days are special events open to all employees who work for the Forest. These events give project managers the opportunity to get a lot of people out to help with light to moderate manual labor, like hand piling cut wood, building fences, naturalizing illegal roads, and similar tasks. The employees get the benefits of working directly with fellow employees from other programs and Districts, contributing to important stewardship projects, learning about other jobs in the forest, and taking a break from their normal work to spend some time outdoors.

This project area is part of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI). Visit the 4FRI website at www.4fri.org for more information about this important restoration effort. Credit U.S. Forest Service Coconino National Forest. Original public domain image from Flickr.