For Immediate Release: Feb. 10, 2005 CA-N-05-28
Contact: Andrea Carter (530) 224-2100

BLM PLANS PRESCRIBED BURNING PROJECT NEAR IGO, SWASEY DRIVE

Fire crews from the U. S. Bureau of Land Management, the California Conservation Corps and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection plan to begin a slash pile burning project near Igo during the week of Feb. 14.

Andrea Carter, fuels management specialist for the BLM's Redding Field Office, said the Bridge to Bridge Project along Clear Creek Road between Redding and Igo will remove piles of limbs and debris created in construction of a shaded fuel break. The project will also remove downed limbs and dead brush that resulted from heavy snow in 2004.

This is the final phase of the fuel break project, started in 2002 by the BLM, Western Shasta Resource Conservation District and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The fuel break, developed on public and private land, is designed to slow the spread of wildfire.
Crews also plan to burn small debris piles along Swasey Drive, west of Redding, in an area known as the Swasey Drive Area of Critical Environmental Concern. These debris piles resulted from natural resource improvement projects.

Crews will ignite the burn piles only when weather conditions, including temperature, winds and humidity, allow for safe and successful burning.
The BLM cooperates with local fire safe councils and resource conservation districts to construct shaded fuel breaks designed to slow the spread of wildfire and to provide defensible space for firefighters. They are called "shaded" fuel breaks because large trees are left standing to provide shade and reduce the plant growth rate within the fuel break.

More information on the burning projects and the shaded fuel break program is available from the BLM Redding Field Office, (530) 224-2100.

-BLM-

Redding Field Office 355 Hemsted Drive Redding, CA 96002