FOREST SERVICE PLANS TO THIN OUT 900 ACRES.Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer LANCASTER - U.S. Forest Service officials expect to begin in late fall or early winter thinning out more than 900 acres of forest along Big Pines Highway and the Mountain High and Ski Sunrise ski areas. The thinning operation will be followed by two larger ones surrounding Wrightwood, which officials want to protect from fires that could break out in overgrown overgrown said of a part that has not been kept trimmed. overgrown hoof overgrown hooves put unusual stresses on bones and tendons and allow for distortion of the wall and sole. chaparral or among densely clustered trees. ``There will be a lot less smaller trees. We're not proposing to remove any green, healthy trees over 18 inches in diameter,'' said Ranger Cid Morgan. Forest officials hope thinning the vegetation will head off a conflagration like the one last fall that devastated dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. San Bernardino Mountains San Bernardino Mountains, part of the Coast Range, S Calif., extending c.60 mi (100 km) NW and SE through San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Notable peaks are San Bernardino Mt. (10,630 ft/3,240 m) and Mt. San Gorgonio (11,485 ft/3,501 m). communities, which were surrounded by dense forest containing dead trees killed by crowding, drought and insects. Dead pine trees killed by the combination of low rainfall and bark beetles bark beetle Any member of the beetle family Scolytidae, many of which severely damage trees. Bark beetles are cylindrical, brown or black, and usually less than 0.25 in. (6 mm) long. - which drought-stressed trees can't fight off - have started showing up around Wrightwood, particularly on the drier southern and western slopes. Workers have already cut a number of dead trees around the town and along Angeles Crest Highway The Angeles Crest Highway is a two-lane (one lane of travel in each direction) segment of California State Route 2 in the United States. The road is 66 miles in length, with its western terminus at the intersection at Foothill Boulevard in La Cañada Flintridge and its eastern . ``What we need is a real good winter,'' said Kathleen Butler, president of the Wrightwood Chamber of Commerce. Besides the 947 acres lining about five miles of two-lane Big Pines Highway and adjoining the ski resorts, a thinning proposal is under review on 2,554 acres of forest surrounding Wrightwood. Most of that is on the ridge south of town. Forest Service officials in neighboring neigh·bor n. 1. One who lives near or next to another. 2. A person, place, or thing adjacent to or located near another. 3. A fellow human. 4. Used as a form of familiar address. v. San Bernardino National Forest San Bernardino National Forest has two main divisions which are the San Bernardino Mountains on the easternmost of the Transverse Range, and the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains on the northernmost of the Peninsular Range. have also decided to cut two ridgetop fuel breaks, re-establish old fire breaks and use deliberately set and controlled fires to thin out chaparral on 3,600 acres in Pine Canyon east of the town. Trees picked for cutting along Big Pines Highway, which links the desert foothill community of Valyermo with Angeles Forest Highway The Angeles Forest Highway traverses the Angeles National Forest and connects the Los Angeles basin to the Antelope Valley by going up and over the San Gabriel Mountains. The highway is variously known as County Road N-3 or FH-59 or the Palmdale cutoff. It is about 25 miles long. near the ski resorts, will be marked starting next week, Morgan said. After that, Forest Service officials will decide what work will be done by fire crews in their off-season and what will be done by private companies under Forest Service contract. More than 91,000 acres of the San Bernardino Mountains burned last fall, destroying nearly 1,000 homes and killing six people. Fueling the flames were thousands of trees killed by years of low rainfall and damage done by bark beetles, which healthy trees are able to fight off. Forest officials say a century of suppressing wildfires has allowed trees to grow in unnaturally thick stands, where they rob each other of water and are more susceptible to problems like bark beetles. A Forest Service survey in May 2003 said Wrightwood was in less danger than San Bernardino Mountains communities from fire. Wrightwood buildings generally have composite shingles shingles: see herpes zoster. shingles or herpes zoster Acute viral skin and nerve infection. Groups of small blisters appear along certain nerve segments, most often on the back, sometimes after a dull ache at the site; pain becomes rather than wood shingles, its weather has not been as dry as in the San Bernardino Mountains and the types of trees around it face a different, less numerous and less aggressive sort of bark beetle than trees in the San Bernardino Mountains, the survey said. Charles F. Bostwick, (661) 267-5742 chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com |
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