Thread by @mattmcgrathaz

#PipelineFire Lockett Meadow - got up there this afternoon, short version, looks better than I expected, and I’ll start some of with the worst: here’s the view of #lockettmeadow, which is good, but the ridge above it leading to Doyle Peak burned kinda hot, but meadow not at all

Possibility of some debris flow down off that ridge, but the campground should be mostly fine. And the meadow looks great. Didn’t get a photo but the first couple hundred yards of aspen from the trailhead burned up, but pass through there and you find what you’re looking for

I hitched a ride with the crew superintendent of the Mormon Lake Hotshots, one of our local crews, which just happens to be a pretty great crew with a pretty great supe. Both were great before a certain someone even got here as District Ranger, so I get no credit. 😀

Here’s where it gets good: the inner basin. A few smokes about 2/3 up the north side of Doyle Peak. We’ll let them smolder, shouldn’t go far and not worth the risk of sending crews up into pretty gnarley terrain. Fremont Peak looks great. City water facilities survived

Coming back down the admin road from the water facilities, a mile of healthy, happy aspen. I don’t know if they are actually happy, but they make me happy. But for sure folks can rest assured that Lockett Meadow and the Inner Basin are alive and well.

Ok, mostly alive and well. We came down via the city water road on the ridge above Lockett Meadow. You know, the one from the first photo that burned kinda hot. Sacramento Hotshots were clearing hazard trees ahead of us, we waited for them to finish their cut.

Another from the hot area on the south side of the ridge above Lockett Meadow. You can see the #PipelineFire really roared up here, and this drainage is in pretty bad shape, but this is where out amazing #wildlandfirefighters were able to make a stand and halt forward progress.

Here’s a map of the fire perimeter. Lockett Meadow alive and mostly well, but you can see the “Waterline 4WD Trail” within the perimeter, and that’s where it burned really hot. But thanks to the incredible work of a lot of brave, talented folks, things better than they could be.

The #PipelineFire and #HaywireFire are still not contained, though crews are making very good progress. We have resource advisors out working with fire crew to repair what suppression repair work we can. That’s the very short term fix.

The medium term fix is bringing in our Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team. These folks prescribe emergency treatments to stabilize soils, slopes, roads, and trails as much as we can. That starts this weekend, and we’ll finish that before big t-storms roll through.

Finally, the long term work. Some of that is letting nature heal itself. We should see a lot more aspen coming in to an area already nationally famous for them. Some is potential replanting. Some is flood mitigation work. It will all take quite a while, but we start now.

Summary: the Lockett Meadow and Inner Basin areas survived and are mostly well. That’s great news. But this is just one area, and some didn’t fare nearly as well. I’ll continue to find out what I can as soon as I can, and I’ll share it all with you whenever I have it.