Elkhorn Creek Forest Health Initiative
In 2015, the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed (CPRW) partnered with Larimer County Conservation Corps, Wildlands Restoration Volunteers, Ben Delatour Scout Ranch and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), collectively forming the Elkhorn Creek Forest Health Initiative (ECHI). ECFHI formed to test the effectiveness of integrating volunteer/new sawyers with professional sawyers to design and implement a forest health project that met multiple objectives including: reducing high intensity wildfire risk, protecting water quality, improving forest resilience, and increasing local sawyer capacity. The project started at the Ben Delatour Scout Ranch, a 3,200 acre Forest Legacy Conservation Easement. Since 2015, we’ve completed over 900 acres of treatments. Of those acres, 146 were hand thinning/slash piling. An additional 15 acres will be hand thinned and piled in the summer of 2021 by Larimer County Conservation Corps (LCCC).
Project Goals – Slash Pile Burning:
- Tree density reduction
- Increase in spatial heterogeneity of openings and tree groups
- Fire behavior modification
ECFHI Partners:
- Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed (CPRW)
-
The Nature Conservancy
-
Wildlands Restoration Volunteers
-
Larimer County Conservation Corps (LCCC)
-
Ben Delatour Scout Ranch (BDSR)
-
Fort Collins Conservation District
-
Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS)