The Bureau of Land Management is finalizing an updated fire management plan for the Front Range. KRCC’s Tucker Hampson reports.
The Royal Gorge office has divided the Front Range into Northeast and Royal Gorge planning areas, with the latter including Las Animas, Pueblo, and Fremont Counties. Changes to the fire management plan include more thinning, seeding and controlled burns. Ed Skerjanec is the Fire Mitigation and Education Specialist for the Bureau. He says the new plan looks to be more flexible and widespread:
"We’re kind of moving away from a sectionalized series of polygons that we had laid out on maps years ago to outline our fire management objectives," says Skerjanec. "Now we’re kind of doing away with those polygons and essentially going with a little broad, more widespread scale of fire management planning."
The new plan aims to create improved firefighter safety, more resilient landscapes, and decreased management costs. There is a scoping period to collect public feedback that runs through August 10th. The plan is expected to be approved this fall.
To see the new plans, or to offer feedback, visit the BLM's planning page here.