Saturday, February 27, 2010

Feeling Lucky?

This "Feeling Lucky" article published in today's Sun Peaks News was written by local photographer Peter Sulzle and features the photo of our neighbourhood lynx.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Update on community wildfire plan

This update is from Tim Cole:
(click to enlarge map)
Hello everybody, I hope everyone is having a great “winter”.  As many of you know, I have been working in conjunction with the LLJCA to apply for funding to start a community wildfire plan that would help reduce the risk of wildfire to our community. After 18 months, we have secured $430 000 from the Ministry of Community Development through the Job Opportunity Program as well as from the Union of BC Municipalities. We were also granted $16 000 to develop a plan for the area which consisted of planning, layout, referrals and liaison with all the numerous public agencies.  I am sure many people have seen my flagging in and around the community which is mainly orange in color with black stripes. We are now at the final stages of approvals and may start work as early as next week. The main areas of our work will be along access routes in and out of the community and on crown land adjacent to private lots. Work will focus on ground fuels, spacing and pruning immature stems and spacing out dense of small-pine stands (mainly on north side of sub-division and south side of lake). All dead pine will be spaced firstly and the intent will be to leave as much green healthy stems as possible. The impact of the treatments will not be drastic but will help improve the aesthetics of our area, especially along the clearcut areas on the north side of the lake.

Many people are also aware we are looking at a fireguard/fuel break along the ridge above the ski hill. We will be putting in this feature and this will be done using heavy equipment this winter with follow up work in the spring. This guard will be 50 meters in width, however it will still contain green, well spaced stems reducing the original densities by about 70%. As the stands are very dense on the ridge, a full clear-cut strip would be highly visible from many areas and would not blend into the natural landscape of our area. Within this guard is an access trail that will be constructed as a multi use recreation trail (<2.0meters in width). This trail is engineered to be constructed as an industrial road only if a wildfire threatens our community to provide quick and easy access to the ridge for wildfire managers and act as a point of attack from the air. This trail will also help motorized recreation users to access the Ridge Lakes area from the east LLJ and Rossmore areas as the only current access is along the lake or the Gus Johnson Trail. Hopefully this will take away pressure from the Gus and allow non-resident users to by-pass our community. This trail will not be open to full size vehicles (unless there is a fire).

All debris will be burned on site and will be conducted when conditions are favorable that allow for the smoke to blown out of the valley quickly and when the fire hazard is low. If works start this month, we will burn as much debris as possible and burn until the snow melts. The remaining debris will be burned in the fall when the snow returns. The company conducting the on-the-ground work will be H.I.S. Venture Ltd. from Kamloops. This company has been instrumental in helping us secure this funding and is taking on the accountability and responsibility for managing this project. One of the conditions of the funding is that HIS hire unemployed forestry workers that will help train and employ many workers impacted by the recent recession. The trucks will be white crew cabs and will be parked at many locations on the public roads so please use caution when passing a work site as there will be many workers near-by. Please obey any posted signs as these will be for your safety.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns and I will try to get back to you as soon as I can.

Thanks, Tim

Tim Cole, RPF
Lonely Mountain Consulting Co.
3776 Pineridge Drive, LLJ
250-377-7654
250-318-3196 cell
tim.cole@telus.net