It Was a Most Excellent Forest Fire

The snow put a big damper on the lightning-caused Table Mountain Fire, the one I posted about last week.  The fire was great for local biodiversity.  According to the current incident report:

"The Table Mountain Fire, which has left a mosaic patchwork of burned and unburned forest within the Sapphire Mountains Wilderness Study Area, has broken up what would otherwise have been continuous forest fuels. The risk of catastrophic fire is greatly reduced when trees are not all the same age.

"The fire area is in the headwaters of the Rock Creek drainage. The headwaters not only feed clean water to Rock Creek, a renowned trout stream, but provide spawning habitat for west slope cutthroat trout and bull trout, species that are far less common than they were when the West was settled. The area burned by the fire is also prime elk habitat. The elk will find lots of green grass and tender sprouts next spring. Aspen, while not common in the burned area, will be rejuvenated by the fire.

Here is the link to the full incident report.