Fire Fuels Reduction & Ecosystems
The FireBREAK Campaign is working in the Moab Valley to reduce dense, invasive thickets of fire fuels — most commonly Russian olive and tamarisk — and replace them with more fire-resistant native species. This work will also increase the flood capacity of Mill and Pack creeks.
While fuels reduction work does temporarily disrupt habitat, the ultimate goal of this work is a safer, more resilient creek corridor with ample habitat for native wildlife. In addition, the FireBREAK Campaign is using wildlife monitoring & mitigation strategies to reduce the impacts of fuels removal on animals in the creek corridors.
Why is this work being done?
The fire and flood risk in the Moab Valley potentially impacts over 400 private land parcels along the Mill and Pack creek channels. A fire in the corridor would threaten up to 1792 structures in Moab and Spanish Valley. The CWDG project (FireBREAK) has given the Moab community five years of financial assistance to reduce the fire risk as much as possible with all of our partners. We have been able to hit the ground running thanks to years of collaborative work on a shoestring over the past 20 years.
Russian olive and tamarisk pose an especially high fire risk in the creek corridors. Dense thickets of these species — common along the creeks — create highly flammable areas of “ladder fuels.” These areas can spread a ground fire in dry grass or cotton into tree canopies, expanding the fire’s heat and flame length. Such a fire is hard to put out and endangers firefighters. It can also send sparks and embers high into the air, where they can be carried by the wind to start spot fires up to a mile away from the original fire site.
1792
number of structures potentially impacted by a wildfire in the Mill or Pack creek corridors
5
years of the Community Wildfire Defense Grant
A significant goal of FireBREAK is to reduce this fire risk by transforming swaths of the creek corridor into shaded fuel breaks. Fire breaks are areas with gaps between vegetation which in turn slow fire movement, making it easier to extinguish and usually reducing its severity. A slower–moving fire is easier for local firefighters to get to in time to put it out. This work helps keep our emergency responders safer on the job. A catastrophic fire in the creek corridors is also likely to destroy, temporarily, significant bird and other wildlife habitat.
Birds also help spread vegetation, both native and exotics like Russian olive. Birds eat olive fruits and can drop those well fertilized seeds miles from where they ate them. Reducing olive trees in the creek corridors through town and replacing them with plants like netleaf hackberry, New Mexico privet and three-leaf sumac means bird will help spread more native plants and fewer olives, which will reduce fire hazards in other areas too.
How can fuels reduction benefit ecosystems?
1. It reduces too-dense, uniform habitat.
A major part of the CWDG (FireBREAK) Campaign is removing or reducing dense thickets of invasive vegetation — primarily Russian olive and tamarisk. While birds do live in this vegetation, it is overall not ideal habitat for native species.
Olive and tamarisk thickets are often too dense for most wildlife or other plants to live in, meaning these areas lack the diversity of plants and animals that native-dominated ecosystems offer. For example, removing Russian olive has been shown to increase insect diversity (6). Native vegetation like cottonwoods, hackberries, and willow create a more diverse and open understory that supports native fauna including birds, bats, mammals, and reptiles. (1, 2, 7).
Russian olive often forms dense, impenetrable thickets along Moab’s creek corridors — like this grove along Pack Creek in Spanish Valley.
2. It sets the stage for native-led habitat.
FireBREAK includes some support for revegetation with more flood-resilient, fire-resistant native species to create a shaded creek corridor. Revegetation work, which occurs in collaboration with private landowners, includes seeding and planting native plants including cottonwoods, willows, New Mexico privet, three-leaf sumac, netleaf hackberry and many native grasses and wildflowers.
Rim to Rim Restoration, a FireBREAK partner, also monitors vegetation response and works with landowners to ensure olive and tamarisk thickets do not return. Rim to Rim has been regenerating the creek corridors for years; Mill Creek from 100 West to 500 West is a great example of how this can work.
A shaded fuel break along Pack Creek in downtown Moab.
3. It connects existing habitat.
Animals use the creek corridors to travel between the La Sal Mountains and the Colorado River. Removing thickets of extremely dense understory — areas so dense that humans need to crawl — enables better wildlife movement between these two important ecosystems.
4. It reduces the risk of a major wildfire, which threatens wildlife
While low-intensity fires often regenerate ecosystems, high-severity fires that burn everything in their path destroy habitat and kill animals. A catastrophic wildfire in the creek corridors would also force animals into densely-populated neighborhoods, where they may be exposed to additional risks.
Moab’s creek corridors are an important wildlife conduit.
How is wildlife taken into account during fuels reduction work?
Rim to Rim Restoration has started conducting bird surveys along the creeks, with a focus on new project sites, to assess which species are present. Information from these surveys will be used to help determine places to avoid at key times of year.
Identifying the presence of bird nests means FireBREAK can take those locations into account before beginning fuels mitigation, and we will adjust work to minimize these impacts whenever we can. It is critical to balance wildlife considerations with the timeline of the grant, public safety, and efficiency.
Recording data during bird monitoring at an upcoming project site.
Protected species
After reviewing existing data about birds found in the Mill and Pack creek corridors, Rim to Rim does not believe olive and tamarisk removal will impact any endangered species. They are included in our monitoring, however, to make sure.
The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act prohibits the pursuit, killing, or disturbing of these species, their nests, or eggs without a permit. We do not expect to see either in the Mill and Pack creek corridors, though these birds do live in the Moab Valley.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (3) prohibits the killing capturing, selling, trading, or transporting of protected migratory bird species unless authorized by a permit. Sometimes work in the creek corridors does need to occur during migration season to balance efficiency, the grant timeline, and safety. Rim to Rim is surveying the corridors to identify any species of concern before tree removal begins. If necessary, we will work with Utah DNR to encourage bird species to move their nest building activity downstream. If a nest has been built that we didn’t find before work starts, and eggs have been laid, we will not clear trees in a buffer area around that nest for the remainder of nesting season (4).
References
(1) Field Guide for Managing Russian Olive in the Southwest, USDA, Southwestern Region, June 2017.
(2) Russian Olive Habitat Along an Arid River Supports Fewer Bird Species, Functional Groups and a Different Species Composition Relative to Mixed Vegetation Habitats, Journal of Arid Environments, Volume 167, August 2019, pages 26-33.
(3) Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
(4) Project Recommendations for Migratory Bird Conservation. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Utah Field Office, May 2020.
(5) Breeding Bird Use of and Nesting Success in Exotic Russian Olive in New Mexico, Scott Stoleson and Deborah Finch, Wilson Bulletin, 113(4), 2001, pp.452-455.
(6) Katz, G.L., and Shafroth, P.B., 2003, “Biology, ecology and management of Elaeagnus angustifolia L. (Russian olive) in Western North America: Wetlands,” v. 23, p. 763–777.
For additional questions, please email Jeanine at Rim to Rim Restoration: jeanine[at]revegetation.org