Hangman thinning nearly done
Logging is a high-profile activity when it occurs between city neighborhoods and skidders drag trees across popular hiking and mountain bike trails.
Reaction to a current forest-thinning operation on Spokane City Parks land near Hangman Creek and Hatch Road has ranged from concern to delight, city officials said.
“We don’t use the “L” word, because that’s not what it’s all about,” said Jim Flott, the city’s urban forester. “This is a fuel-mitigation project; treating the under story and reducing the risk of fire around houses.”
The project on a portion of the 50-acre Hangman Conservation Area began in January and should be done in two or three weeks, depending on weather, Flott said.
The area is just north of the Highland Park subdivision and it connects with other city land between Hangman Creek and High Drive informally known as the South Hill Bluffs.
In recent years, a loosely organized group of clandestine volunteers has groomed a wildly popular and surprisingly well engineered trail system in this area.
“We’re going in and thinning as part of the national fire plan program, to remove dead, dying or diseased trees infected with beetle, mistletoe or ponderosa pine gall rust,” Flott said.
“And since there’s a lot of people in there hiking and biking, we’re also removing trees that have structural problems that might cause them to fall.
“We’re also treating the under story by grinding up all the smaller thickets and opening the floor so if there’s a fire it will remain a ground fire and not go up into the canopy.”
The main haul roads already existed, although they were idle for long enough to look more like trails than roads before the logging started.
“A lot of the debris in there is left over from Ice Storm and its been on the ground for 10 years,” Flott said. “A lot of the small stuff with be treated and left to decompose to provide nutrients for the ground.”
The disturbed sites and skid tails that come straight down some slopes will be restored and reseeded with native grasses, Flott said.
“The weather really slowed us down,” he said. “It was scheduled to be done when the ground was frozen to minimize disturbance. But then we had this big thaw and we had to back off for a while when it was too muddy.”
Income isn’t the motive for the forest thinning project, Flott said. “Not all of the timber is marketable, but there should be enough revenue from salvageable timber to pay for the project.”
Residents who live in the adjoining Highland Park and Blackwood neighborhoods “have been very interested in getting this done to reduce fire danger,” Flott said, a sentiment echoed by several bikers and hikers using the trails last weekend.
The Hangman Conservation Area is the last of five city forest areas to be thinned for forest health and fire prevention, he said. The others were Camp Sekani along Upriver Drive, Wyakin Park on north Assembly, plus Palisades and Indian Canyon parks.