The gravel parking lot off Interstate 80’s Lambs Canyon exit was unusually full Monday morning, and a loose huddle of people — similarly dressed in dark boots, work pants and light jackets — stood squinting against the sunlight, many holding insulated cups of coffee.The group, two dozen prescribed fire practitioners connected through the Utah Prescribed Fire Council, had driven from their corners of the state for a biannual field trip, this time showing work done in Summit County. Representatives from Utah Department of Natural Resources, their Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, the U.S. Forest Service, Park City Municipal, Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District, Deer Valley Resort, Alpine Forestry, Utah State University and a handful of Summit County-based HOA representatives made up some of the group, there to learn more about prescribed fire work in the Wasatch. Originally three stops were on the day’s agenda — Lambs Canyon, Pinebrook and Kamas — but with the Yellow Lake Fire still burning in the Wasatch National Forest, the Kamas visit was deemed unsafe and scratched the night before. While the ongoing fire caused a change in plans, it drove home the need for prescribed fire work as a method for wildfire mitigation. For this group, what one attendee called a “prescribed fire advocacy and support group,” that’s preaching to the choir.Underlying the gathering was the idea of collaboration. Wildfire mitigation work through the use of prescribed fire is only effective if it’s consistent across a landscape, and when the landscapes are broken up into various public and private ownership, each group needs to work together.Brad Washa with Utah State University talks about the burn efforts from last year that happened in Lambs Canyon. Credit: Clayton Steward/Park RecordBrad Washa, a wildland firefighter of 35 years turned Utah State University professor of wildland fire science and Pinebrook resident, facilitated the field trip. He introduced project managers from the two site visits, who each gave an overview of the work, the objectives and challenges and answered any questions.Starting in Lambs Canyon, Stuart Bedke with the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands spoke about the work in that area as part of the larger plan to link mitigation efforts along the Wasatch, both Front and Back.Finished for now in Lambs Canyon, Bedke said they’ll next move into Millcreek Canyon, then Big Cottonwood Canyon and Little Cottonwood Canyon. The whole process should take about 20 years, he said, and then they’ll come back to Parley’s and start again to continue maintaining the integrity of the project.The main strategy of discussion was pile burning, conversations ranging from best practices for pile construction to prevent soil sterility, using horses to shuttle fuel up to burn crews to save on labor costs, navigating the public’s and nearby homeowner’s reactions to the project and managing smoke and watershed impacts while burning.Everyone admitted that, sure, this work couldn’t stop a wildfire sparked during the driest part of the summer, fueled by extreme winds, but it would give responders a fighting chance in most other cases.Plenty of the foresters looked around with nods of approval — the forest looks healthy, standing dead trees and dry, overgrown brush cleared out to open up the space, plenty of aspen regeneration and new growth speckling the blackened earth or “burn footprints.”The next stop was Pinebrook for a two-part discussion in a Wilderness Urban Interface. Alpine Forestry co-owner David Telian spoke about their work both along highly-trafficked trails and on homeowner property, and Pinebrook’s Fire Safety Committee Co-Chair Don Brown talked about incentivizing and informing residents on the importance of wildfire mitigation work. Hiking up into the network of private trails for Pinebrook residents, Telian pointed out areas where their crews completed projects last fall. Washa joked that residents in the homes across from the hill even sat on their porches and watched them work.“We didn’t close the trails or the sites or anything while we were implementing,” said Telian. “When people can come up and just visit you and talk, it really goes a long way. And the people we interacted with in Pinebrook here, every now and then (had) a skeptical question, but for the most part were just thrilled with the work. They hike these trails routinely. They see the changes over time, and they’re really positive interactions.”Part of that positive public feedback was due to the HOA’s work of informing residents on the wheres, whens and whys of the projects.Just like the work in Lambs Canyon required collaboration between state, federal and private agencies, Pinebrook’s work to fortify their land against wildfires relies on collaboration between homeowners’ associations and private landowners.The last stop of the day was to see the work a Pinebrook resident had done in their 3-acre plot.Alpine Forestry, a private wildfire-risk management company, has been working in Summit County for five years now, Telian said.“A couple years ago we identified this lack of multi-agency notification,” he said. “So we implemented a countywide disclosure (process) … that automatically gives a notification to a bunch of crucial players.” A smattering of applause, murmurs and head-nods interrupted him briefly. “That’s been a huge tool for our local area in our practitioner and agency circle.”Communication is key to collaboration, which is key to ready communities for the threat of a wildfire — the group left reminded and reinvigorated.Hot, dry conditions this fall mean mitigation burn seasons are still on hold, and emergency response teams deployed to hurricane-hit areas of the country have put projects on pause, too. But there’s still plenty of work that can happen in the meantime.The post Field trip in Summit County reminds fire officials of the need for collaboration appeared first on Park Record.