Beginning around the first part of June, the North Zone Interagency Fire/Fuels group will resume road edge mastication treatments on North Kaibab Ranger District denoted routes. Contractors will be using heavy equipment to thin roadside vegetation areas along multiple forest roads for the purpose of setting boundaries for prescribed fire implementation and strategic wildfire planning to aid in containment. The project is being implemented under the Kaibab Plateau Ecological Restoration Project. The project areas are located on forest roads on the southern part of the district to the east and west of Arizona State Route 67 and may occur along access roads to the Rainbow Rim trailheads to the west and the Marble Canyon Wilderness to the east.
Impacts to roads and trails are expected to be minimal and no area or road closures are currently expected. Work areas and routes where machines are in use will be signed for public awareness, and we do ask the public to avoid the project area if equipment is operation. If encountered, do not approach or linger around machinery; approaching such equipment is very dangerous as the operator will not see you. Give forest machines a 500-foot working buffer.
Mastication is a process in which heavy machinery equipped with chopping and/or grinding components move through a forest area of shrubs and small trees, leaving chipped or shredded material behind. This process converts ladder fuels to ground fuels, reducing the potential for rapid wildfire growth and aids firefighters in anchoring firelines to these areas for containment as well as reducing snag hazards for all forest road users. The material left behind also increases the rate of decomposition of the biomass, enhancing the cycling of carbon and other nutrients sequestered in the biomass and making those nutrients available to the forest around it.
Mechanical thinning treatments have proven to be an effective restoration and management tool. Completion of this project will improve the health and resiliency of fire-adapted ecosystems while simultaneously restoring watersheds, rangelands, and wildlife habitats and reducing hazardous fuels that pose a threat to the forest.
Information can be found on the Kaibab NF website, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, or by calling the local ranger stations.
Map of mastication on North Kaibab Ranger District, June 2023: