Huachuca FireScape

In 2009 the Huachuca FireScape project completed a three-agency, landscape-scale Environmental Assessment (NEPA compliance) and received a Biological Opinion (Endangered Species Act compliance) covering a menu of treatments for 400,000 acres in southeastern Arizona. Coronado National Memorial (National Park Service), and Fort Huachuca (U.S. Army) are the other federal partners, but adjacent BLM, TNC, Audubon, and private ranch lands are included in the greater planning area.

These partners have worked together for over a decade to coordinate fire management in an area where wildfires burn freely across property lines. Key treatments are large prescribed burns, but also thinning in the burgeoning wildland-urban interface (WUI). The compliance phase is complete (no appeals), and fire staff are making plans for implementation.