Update on Community Wildfire Plan

This is an update prepared by Tim Cole on the Community Wildfire Plan.

Hello everyone at Lac le Jeune and Walloper Lake. I want to let everybody know we have started operational work on the wildfire plan for our community and to be aware of our activities.

Ground work has started on the Park Drive West Road and the first 800 meters of the Ridge Mountain FSR. This area consists mainly of Douglas fir and the focus is cleaning up ground fuels and latter fuels. We have also started heavy equipment work on either end of the fire guard and this work should take 10-14 days.

We had to plough out the Rossmore road today to gain access to the east end of Lac le Jeune for pickups and heavy equipment. If you have been using this route for snowmobiling, please be aware that snowmobiling is always prohibited on ploughed forestry roads. If you have to use it, please use caution and reduce your speed. If you are going to access Rossmore Lake via the trail from the east end of Lac Le Jeune, a portion of this trail has also been cleared. You will only be on it for a short period of time, but please use caution if you have to use it. This road will be maintained for approximately 2 weeks and hopefully we will get some more snow after we are done. If you use the ski trails at Stake Lake, the crossings have been maintained but use caution when crossing as there may be traffic or exposed gravel. Sorry for any inconvenience opening up this road may cause.

The areas that have been logged in the past three years and adjacent to roadways will be treated after the snow melts as most of the fuel in on the ground and under snow.

There have been some inquiries about the availability of firewood from this activity and the answer is yes. Cutting firewood for residents saves us time and money and allows us to do more work. The fire wood will be bucked and stacked adjacent to the roads and everybody is welcome to it. Please do not cut any logs on the ground within our treated areas as many of these are to be left for wildlife and soil conservation purposes. All the firewood will be bucked so you will not need your saw.

We have started burning at 2.5km on the Ridge Mountain Road and will continue to burn as long as it is safe to do so. You will see smoke on the ridge to south on and off for the next 5-6 weeks. We will also start burning our smaller piles within the next week.

Thank you for the tremendous support for this project, everything has been very positive.

Once again, please feel free to email me if you have questions or concerns and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. I will be sending out periodic updates to keep everybody informed.

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