2016-Pineries Open Space Fire Restoration

Start Date-End Date: 08/27/2016-08/27/2016 Land Manager Office: El Paso County Parks Land Manager Contact: Jason Meyer Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Summary: Restore habitat and infrastructure at this gorgeous open space burned by the 2013 Black Forest Fire. Description: About the Stewardship Site The beautiful Pineries Open Space is situated in Black Forest, north of Colorado Springs. The 1,067 acres of land includes rare and unique plants, mature ponderosa pine woodland, foothill prairie, and wet meadow. After the 2013 Black Forest Fire occurred and wreaked havoc in the area, a priority for the park is to restore habitat and recreational facilities, and prevent further damage. About the Volunteer Experience After years of helping the Black Forest Regional Park recover from the state's most destructive wildfire on record, VOC is eager to shift cleanup and infrastructure restoration efforts to the Pineries Open Space. Volunteer tasks will include removing debris from trailhead areas, reseeding burned areas with native seeds, removing noxious weeds and burned vegetation, and repairing damaged open space infrastructure such as horse corrals and buildings. This is a great project for large groups, including employees and schools. A light breakfast and lunch will be provided. About the Overall Impact Over the past three years, volunteer response to fires in the Colorado Springs area has been overwhelming, and has allowed for much of the needed ecological restoration that gives a boost to the completion of forest recovery. Now, VOC will turn our attention to additional work restoring and repairing open space infrastructure, which will help ready the property for the return of recreational users. Latitude/Longitude: 39.013537, -104.663301 Additional Information: Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Moderate High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 70 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 46 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 2 Total Volunteer Days: 48 Total Unique Volunteers: 48 Total Volunteer Hours: 452 Staff Hours: 27 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: On a warmer-than-expected day, volunteers worked to rehabilitate the facilities at Pineries Open Space. Crews thinned trees, picked up debris from the fire, trimmed mullein, installed log erosion barriers, repaired corral fencing, and did light corridor work. Volunteer turnout was lower than anticipated, however the work that was available probably better fit the group size that did show up, so numbers were still adequate. Morning announcements went well, with the President of Colorado College addressing the group and Jason from the Open Space talking about context for the project. The actual project work varied considerably from crew to crew, but largely involved fairly tedious tasks. Mullein removal was straightforward but the property had more mullein than could reasonably be trimmed in any amount of time with any amount of people. This led to some sense among volunteers of "busy work" as they couldn't see the direct impact of their work with such a large quantity of invasives on the property. The estimated time that the work would take to complete was over-calculated, and we were done with all the relevant project work listed largely by lunch. After lunch we spent around an hour to an hour and a half finishing up tasks and trimming a little bit more mullein before calling it a day. The vast majority of the volunteers on the project were new, which may have had an impact on attrition after lunch. The heat, combined with new volunteers, combined with work that was monotonous likely led to some of the attrition experienced on the project. That all being said, volunteers were able to fill an entire commercial dumpster (the kind that is attached to a semi-truck) with invasives and debris from the area. This was far more than the land managers expected to accomplish, and they seemed very happy with the work done. Successes and Challenges: Successes - Food donations, pick-ups, and delivery all went well. Timing for lunch was right on, as was the start time in the morning and crew orientations. Challenges - The work was outside of the normal scope of our projects. Large attrition after lunch for crews that were working around the buildings. The project manager noted in the morning that if a volunteer had to leave early for another obligation (as a few volunteers had indicated during registration) that they should work on one of the crews staying around the parking/registration area. The expectation was the loss of a few volunteers, but the reality was that nearly every memeber of two crews left after lunch. Lessons Learned: If you as the project manager are going to indicate crews for people not committed for a full day, it's advisable to poll those groups for the number of people leaving and when they're leaving. By indicating a few crews for people to join if they couldn't work the full day, the ratio of members leaving those crews spiked, while everyone on other crews were available for the full day. Special Notes: This type of fire restoration work doesn't seem particularly enjoyable to our crew leaders and some others. Working on invasives in an area where they are abundant is demoralizing as there's a seemingly endless amount to do and what is accomplished seems trivial. Additionally cleaning up debris from fire damaged buildings is not glamorous work and quickly becomes bland for volunteers, increasing the likelihood of attrition. Stewardship Education: N/A Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Jason Meyers, the land manager for the project, indicated that this would likely be the last "cleanup" project he does with VOC. His intention for future projects is to focus on more "meaty" tasks like trail construction in the area. Description of Accidents/Incidents: None. Description of Work Completed: