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The Lake Christine Fire burned over 12,000 acres on Basalt Mountain in 2018, causing the evacuation of over 2,000 people and leaving a lasting burn scar across the landscape.
At nearly 10,000 feet in elevation on Basalt Mountain, it’s easy to see where the fire left its mark—if you’re looking up.
But if you look down, you’ll see plenty of green.
Sarah Pearson, the White River National Forest’s regeneration coordinator, is using her hoe to point to some tiny sprouts that will one day grow into spruce trees.
“Natural regeneration is what this is right here,” she said. “So there’s a little bit in the portions that didn't burn super hot.”
The White River National Forest is doing a major restoration project in the burn scar, replanting nearly 80,000 trees in areas that aren’t seeing natural regeneration, and need a little extra push.
What makes these seedlings special, is that they’re all local, taken from other spots in the forest — mostly, the Roaring Fork Valley. Pearson says that this will hopefully increase their likelihood of survival.
“The cool thing is, they're genetically adapted to the climate here and all the growing conditions, because I try to plant them in a similar climate as to where they were collected,” she said.
The cones for the seedlings were gathered in 2022 and have been growing for a year or so at the Bessey Nursery in Nebraska, where the Forest Service collects and plants all kinds of seeds. This gives these trees a head start in life, but it’s a long process to actually get them in the ground.
“These were actually put in the boxes, October 31st of 2023,” Pearson recounted. “So they were frozen in these boxes all winter, and then, a few weeks ago, they started thawing them out so we could plant them.”
By the time Pearson and her crew start putting them in the ground, they’re six-inch tall saplings.
So, why does the Forest Service keep all of these seeds for years and years? And why did they wait six years after the fire to start planting?
Pearson and other officials say they get that question all the time, because the public is so ready to see an area recover after a fire. But fire is a natural part of the landscape, even if the Lake Christine Fire had man-made causes. Officials like Pearson want to see natural regrowth before they get in there.
“I think, now there is actually some studies that they did that if you wait five to six, seven years after the burn, your survival can be just a little bit better than if you do it sooner,” she said.
But there’s a lot of variables that can impact whether a seedling makes it to adulthood. Not the least of which is human-caused climate change, which comes with its own series of impacts, from warmer and dryer temperatures at higher elevations to hotter, more severe and fast-moving wildfires.
“20, 30 years ago, we didn't really have that many big fires on the White River (National Forest),” Pearson recalled. “In fact, when I started out in Dillon in the 90s, all the people in the engine called it ‘the Asbestos Forest’ because nothing ever burned. But of course, now things have changed.”
Pearson’s crew is doing their best to ensure the survival of the lodgepoles and spruces by making sure they’re planting them in spots they’ll like.
“Tenemos una distancia más o menos a diez pies allí, y aquí. Y yo ya me estoy fijando de ese pino. Tengo que ver la distancia. El otro tiene que ir por aquí.”
That’s Pedro Cruz, one of the guys out here planting trees. He said they’re looking for about 10 feet of distance between each tree, and consider where existing trees already are.
It’ll take about a century before any of these seedlings startto look like its larger neighbors, which are 50 or 60 feet tall. It’s the kind of work that requires long-term vision.
Pearson has been working in reforestation for decades, and she’s used to the long-scale of her work… but others are not.
“Sometimes people are like, ‘why do you like this?’ And I'm like, ‘well, you know, in 100 years, it'll look awesome,’” she said. “These people are like, ‘well, I don't care. I won't be alive.’ Then it's like, ‘yes, but the future generations.’ I mean, you have to think beyond yourself occasionally.”
The Forest Service has another 60,000 seedlings lined up to be planted in the spring of next year. Those future trees will be in a much better place if these seedlings can make it through another fire season unscathed.
