Fire mitigation efforts
- The Lab’s Wildland Fire team removes fuels (such as timber and brush) at a rate of approximately 3,000 tons per year across the site.
- Evacuation routes have been cleared and are ready.
- Fire roads and fire breaks are inspected and maintained, and familiarization tours have been provided to Los Alamos Fire Department personnel.
- Elevated, dip and portable tanks are inspected and ready.
- Wildland Fire staff are on call and ready to respond if needed.
- Firefighting assets are prepositioned to assist the Los Alamos Fire Department and other agencies as needed to protect key facilities. Those assets include a U.S. Forest Service helicopter that is maintained on-site, a 20,000-gallon water dip tank, a Laboratory water tanker, and heavy equipment to assist with fire lines if necessary.
Mindful forest thinning
- The Wildland Fire and Forest Management programs coordinate with archeologists and biologists to protect the cultural sites ancestral to nearby Pueblo communities and manage our natural resources.
- During migratory bird season, biologists sweep treatment areas for active bird nests so that disturbance to trees and shrubs with active nests are minimized during vegetation and tree removal operations.
- Archaeologists survey for unrecorded sites, verify boundaries, and flag cultural resources for visibility and avoidance so that operators do not bring heavy machinery such as masticators into archaeological sites.
- The forest monitoring program measures tree density, understory plant cover, and fuels to better plan treatments, understand the long-term effects, and adapt management practices.
