BLM plans burns in northern Black Hills

Photo shot of 2002 Grizzly Gulch Fire from '59 burn: spot fire on Pillar Peak, at least a mile downwind of main fire

In the coming days Bureau of Land Management Montana/Dakotas will try to fire grasses near Sturgis and outside Lead at Sugarloaf Mountain and Englewood.

The Fort Meade Recreation Area burn is planned for areas near the old VA Cemetery and northeast of the Alkali Creek Campground representing about 650 acres. Burning in what is known as the “Exemption Area” is planned near Englewood and Sugarloaf Mountain. Approximately 130 acres is scheduled for treatment. Burn objectives are to reduce hazardous fuels accumulations, rejuvenate native plant species and improve forage quality. Reducing plant litter and decadent grass will also lower the likelihood --or intensity-- of future wildfires in this area. [press release]

Because of Senator John Thune (NAZI-SD) costs of conducting prescribed burns are now thousands of dollars per acre instead of hundreds.

Most of the vegetation on some 274,000 surface acres in the South Dakota BLM Field Office is prairie grassland or juniper woodlands but the trees at the Fort Meade Recreation Area are mostly ponderosa pine and bur oak. Around Lead and Deadwood pine and oak are mixed with spruce, birch, and quaking aspen.

The 60th anniversary of the 1959 Deadwood Hill Fire was just recently commemorated. Much of the 2002 Grizzly Gulch Fire outside Deadwood occurred on BLM ground.

Current conditions suck as fuel moisture is still quite high. Burn potential in the northern Black Hills is in the moderate category but at least somebody is trying to do something to control invasive grasses.