One site is located on the North Rim in a proposed wilderness area near Swamp Ridge. Another is located on the South Rim, near Grandview Point. The third site is just south of the park in the Kaibab National Forest. Public comment on the proposals will continue through March 25. Where the prescription calls for timber cutting, small trees will be chipped and burned to release nutrients into the soil.
Larger trees are to be removed and donated to local Indian tribes.
Grand Canyon senior scientist Robert Winfree explains that low-intensity fires were common in Southwestern forests until around 1870, when the region was settled. Fire was part of the ecosystem. Fire-resistant Ponderosa pines dominated forests, and fire cleaned away dead wood and fallen pine needles, returning trapped nutrients to the soil. But after 1870, large herds of sheep grazed off much of the grass that carried fire through the forest. In some areas, logging operations removed many of the oldest trees, and a new policy of fire suppression meant more seedlings survived.