The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposes to use helicopters to ignite fire in the Powderhorn Wilderness and Wilderness Study Area (WSA) in southwestern Colorado, a plan Wilderness Watch strongly opposes. The 62,000-acre Powderhorn Wilderness is a high-elevation landscape with one of the largest unbroken expanses of alpine tundra in the Lower 48. The Powderhorn WSA comprises another 51,000 acres of wilderness-quality public lands.
Thee project is being posed partially in response to a natural event where a spruce beetle outbreak killed Engelmann spruce across the area. However, large stand- replacing events like this occur periodically in these high- elevation spruce-firr forests, and beetle-killed trees have not been shown to increase fire severity as BLM claims.
The agency proposes a plethora of activities incompatible with Wilderness—helicopter landings, chainsaws, and drones to ignite an undetermined number of fires over 15 years. These activities violate a fundamental tenet of Wilderness—that it remains “untrammeled.” BLM should drop this plan and instead let natural fires shape the Powderhorn.
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Photo: Bob Wick/BLM via Flickr
