City Realizing Benefit From The Grand Mesa Fire
Incident: Grand Complex Prescribed Fire
Released: 7/19/2008
The Daily Sentinel
The bill to the federal government for monitoring two fires that have smoldered most of this month on Grand Mesa has topped $600,000 thus far.
But in the long run, one of the lightning-sparked blazes, which officials have allowed to burn on the west flank of the mesa, could save the U.S. Forest Service and the city of Grand Junction more than what has been spent to keep them under control.
The agencies signed an agreement last year to spend roughly $3 million over the next 10 years to thin out oak brush and pinyon juniper in the city's 60,000-acre Kannah Creek watershed. That's where the Coal Creek Fire has torched about 1,500 acres since it started nearly three weeks ago.
Terry Franklin, deputy director of the city's utilities and streets systems, said city officials had planned to take out some vegetation by hand and by setting controlled burns in the watershed. The city had budgeted about $500,000 in its water fund to chip in toward the work, but now it will be able to spend that money on other projects.
"The fire is burning more than what we could have burned in a normal year with a controlled burn," Franklin said.
"We ought to thank (Mother Nature). It sounds like she's saved us some money," City Councilwoman Bonnie Beckstein said last week.
The reduction of fuels alleviates the potential for a wildfire to burn out of control and deposit ash and sediment in the watershed, endangering the city's water supply.
Franklin said the Coal Creek Fire is not threatening the city's watershed, but that should any risk arise or debris enter Kannah Creek, the city would divert water from the North Fork of Kannah Creek until Kannah Creek cleared up.
