Tonto National Forest this week launched a 5,200-acre thinning project to protect Pine, Strawberry, Whispering Pines, Washington Park and a host of other communities from wildfire.
The project will continue for five months, with mechanical thinning intended to create buffer zones around forested communities in the hopes of lessening the danger of the kinds of catastrophic fires that have consumed more than 10,000 homes this year in California.
âThese scheduled mechanical treatments are a vital component of our long-range, landscape-scale, three-pronged fuels reduction and Robust Forest Strategy that we began successfully implementing in 2001,â fire managers said in a news release. âThis strategy has attracted national attention and recognition and seeks to reduce catastrophic wildfire danger in Rim Country, to initiate the restoration of natural landscapes and ecological systems, and to foster and develop sustainable forest conditions, wildlife habitat, and watershed