CEDAR CITY — Cedar City’s Bureau of Land Management Office is in the process of renewing its “Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation Program,” which is responsible for time-sensitive, post-wildfire treatments.
The program, if reapproved, will “enable the agency to maximize the effectiveness of its response to time-sensitive, post-wildfire, public safety and resources concerns across 2.1 million acres” of public lands in Iron and Beaver counties and parts of Washington County, a BLM news release reads.
Wildfires impact large swaths of Southern Utah’s landscape, Paul Briggs, a field manager at the BLM’s Cedar City Field Office, told St. George News.
“There’s no normal fire year,” he said. “It’s either on the low end of the scale or the high end of the scale and more often … it’s on the higher end.”
Following a fire, the BLM creates a plan, conducts a National Environmental Policy Act analysis and applies for emergency stabilization and rehabilitation funds from the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service, Briggs said. This must be submitted within 21 days after the fire is contained.
The Cedar City Field Office has completed 49 site-specific plans in response to approximately 213,000 acres burned by wildfires between 2001-2021, the release states.
Land stewards will reseed areas using various tools and methods, apply mulch to control erosion and repair fences, among other efforts. This work helps prevent the infiltration of invasive species, like cheatgrass, while promoting the retention of native seed “islands,” said Jacqueline Russell, public affair specialist for the BLM Color Country District.
The BLM is “a little bit unique” in that it has a diverse mission managing wild horses and burros, as well as land for recreation, wildlife habitat and livestock grazing, among other uses, Briggs said.
“The emergency stabilization rehabilitation treatments following fire allow us to go in and establish desirable perennial vegetation on those sites, instead of having to react to an invasion of cheatgrass or some nonnative annuals, or something like that,” he said. “And it allows us to accelerate the recovery time.”
Multiple organizations partner with the BLM and support the program, including Utah’s Watershed Restoration Initiative as part of the agency’s “biggest assistance agreement.” Resulting funds can be used as leverage to acquire additional state and private dollars, and the BLM can utilize state contracting, procurement systems and personnel to assist with projects.
The program intends to reduce risks to health and safety. For instance, 2007’s Milford Flat Fire was the largest in Utah’s history at more than 360,000 acres, Briggs said.
Private property owners were impacted by flooding, while those on Interstate 15 were dealing with large amounts of dust, causing fatalities due to reduced visibility. Such instances are the agency’s “highest priority.”
“We want to stabilize those sites as quickly as possible,” Briggs said.
While the fire is “ancient history,” Briggs emphasizes that treatments were a success, despite the challenge of restoring a large area and being one of the first times the partnership was used.
“There’s no way any of us could have done something of that scale on our own,” he said. “Basically, being able to partner with all those entities, we were able to get that done, which was a real accomplishment.”
In 2013, a lightning strike caused the Black Mountain Fire, which created a large column of smoke north of Cedar City, south of Minersville, and burned over 4,500 acres. The fire moved south toward Maple Springs, which was reseeded in 2002 after a fire, the BLM states in a document lauding the emergency stabilization program.
“Firefighters took advantage of the reduced flame lengths in the reseeding by quickly suppressing the head of the fire after establishing a safe place to work,” according to the agency.
“In places, the fire suppressed itself in the flame-resistant vegetation, seeded to prevent cheatgrass invasion and restore a more resilient landscape of perennial vegetation,” the document continues. “Not only did this post fire seeding provide an effective fuel break from a large, fast-moving fire, but it also provided firefighters with a safe place to work.”
If the program is not renewed, the BLM will go through its regular processes to secure funding to treat landscapes, which would slow timelines significantly, Briggs said.
“It may be five years down the road after the fire before we’re able to get all that work in place and lined up to be able to fund and implement those things,” he said. “By then, we’d be really behind the power curve both ecologically and funding-wise as far as getting things done.
“It’s definitely in the public interest for us to be successful with this and accelerate the recovery. It’s the wisest public investment we can make instead of delaying and having to spend more money and being up against more of a challenge later on.”
Such delays increase the risk of erosion, flooding and blowing dust to public safety, in addition to giving invasive grasses a foothold in the area, Russell added.
However, not every post-fire site requires treatment if there is no imminent threat to critical natural or cultural resources, life, property or other assets, Russell said.
For instance, “if the BLM determines that the vegetative community within the burned area is likely to recover without additional inputs, then passive recovery would be the preferred course of action,” she explained.
Nonprofit expresses concern
Wildlands Attorney Judi Brawer with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance told St. George News that the nonprofit’s greatest concern is not seeing enough data concerning the program’s results and impacts in the BLM’s current environmental assessment.
The alliance supports the program, Brawer said, adding that emergency stabilization and rehabilitation are essential. But the plan created in 2003 included “very stringent monitoring requirements” to ensure the program achieved desired results.
“The environmental assessment that they issued has none of that information in it,” she said. “So we don’t know what worked, what didn’t work. And we don’t know whether this new plan is based on all of the data that they should have been collecting over the last 20 years.
“It’s not that we’re opposed to the program. We actually very much support an emergency stabilization and rebuild program. We just want the agency to be using lessons learned from the past 20 years and the … updated science and updated data to create this plan, and we’re not seeing that. … We want (the environmental assessment) to be a really good document.”
The Cedar City Field Office collects data on vegetative cover, species composition, and “other indicators of vegetation community health” in key areas, summarized in the environmental assessment in the documents tab on the agency’s ePlanning website.
Russell said that they conduct many individual projects with the support of partners like the Utah Watershed Restoration Initiative, and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources collects information concerning these areas as well, which can be found on the initiative’s website.
The nonprofit is also concerned that nonnative plants may have been seeded as part of these projects and would like more data regarding cheatgrass expansion and the condition of these landscapes for native species, Brawer said.
Their concern stems from current data indicating that “the non-natives they used, such as crested wheatgrass and forage kochia, are outcompeting native plants in many places,” she added.
While the BLM prioritizes using native seeds to “maintain ecosystem integrity,” there are circumstances where nonnative plants are grown, Russell said, adding that the agency carefully considers the seeds they choose to minimize the risk of introducing invasive species that could cause further harm.
For instance, nonnative seeds could be used if there is an insufficient supply of native seeds or when “fast-growing nonnatives are needed to quickly stabilize soils and prevent erosion.”
“Or when nonnative species are better adapted to compete with nonnative invasive annuals and survive in severely burned areas,” she added. “However, the use of nonnative species is usually a temporary measure, and the ultimate goal is to restore the native plant community as much as possible.”
The removal of juniper and pinyon pine trees as part of fire mitigation programs is an ongoing concern for various conservation groups as some species, like the pinyon jay, rely on these forests to survive, and the process can disturb or damage the soil crust and natural seed bank.
However, the emergency stabilization and rehabilitation program does not utilize this strategy, Russell said.
“Live juniper trees are not targeted for removal in post-fire projects,” she said. “The removal of burned juniper trees sometimes occurs as a result from incorporating seed into the soil while stabilizing and rehabilitating the site. As always, any action under the ESR program is carefully evaluated for its environmental impact, considering both short-term needs and long-term ecological health.”
The public comment period for the program’s renewal is closed, and a decision is expected in August, Briggs said. However, the public is still encouraged to participate when possible, such as by watching for volunteer opportunities with the watershed initiative and the agency.
While emergency stabilization projects are planned in the first few months following a fire, rehabilitation can continue for up to three years. Individuals often have opportunities to grow plants or shrubs in containers, and participate in on-site planting, as well as other hands-on work.
Updated, Aug. 8, 1:30 p.m., to clarify where readers can find data made available by the BLM and add additional information.
Photo Gallery
An after picture taken to illustrate the long-term recovery of the Milford Flat area, Utah, circa 2010 | Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, St. George News A baren landscape comes to life in these before and after photos of the Black Mountain emergency stabilization and rehabilitation efforts in Iron County, Utah, June 2014-2015 | Image compilation courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, St. George News A baren landscape comes to life in Iron County, Utah, date not specified | Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, St. George News A baren landscape comes to life in Iron County, Utah, date not specified | Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, St. George News A baren landscape comes to life in Iron County, Utah, date not specified | Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, St. George News A reseeding plane prepares to take off, Milford, Utah, date not specified | Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, St. George News A blackened burn scar stops near an area that had been reseeded by the Bureau of Land Management in 2002, Black Mountain, Utah, date not specified | Photo courtesy of the BLM, St. George News A baren landscape comes to life in these before and after photos of the Black Mountain emergency stabilization and rehabilitation efforts in Iron County, Utah, June 2014-2015 | Image compilation courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, St. George News An after picture taken to illustrate the long-term recovery of the Milford Flat area, Utah, circa 2010 | Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, St. George News A before picture taken to illustrate the long-term recovery of the Milford Flat area, Utah, circa 2008 | Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, St. George News A picture taken to illustrate the long-term recovery of the Milford Flat area, Utah, circa 2009 | Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, St. George News
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