Wildfire Maintenance Plan

About: As Salt Lake City adapts to increasingly warmer and dryer seasons like much of the western United States, the City’s Trails & Natural Lands (TNL) Division must assess and adjust its management practices to the City’s evolving needs for care and maintenance of its natural lands.  While there is inherent value in supporting ecological health in our nature parks and large natural areas like the Jordan River and Foothills, we need to responsibly mitigate wildfire risk along our Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). In partnership with the SLC Fire Department and the City’s other major natural area landowner, Public Utilities, TNL has taken leadership in reducing wildfire risk across its natural lands by identifying the areas of highest concern and committing resources to short and long-term fire fuels mitigation while ensuring local habitats for flora and fauna to thrive.

Allen Park is not only a culturally significant property but also an ecologically significant one. With Emigration creek running through the property the park hosts many wildlife and a robust urban forest. Through communications with our Urban Forestry division as well as SLC fire department’s wildland fire experts, the urban forest in Allen Park has been inventoried for its health as well as its deferred maintenance. Unfortunately, through years of deferred maintenance prior to ownership by the city, dangerous fuels have piled up in the park. The scope of this task order is to reduce the fuel load in the park in a systematic way that preserves the healthy urban forest found within.

Area A – Front Meadow

• Canopy prune
  • Long overdue maintenance prune of large trees in the front meadow. This will need to be performed by climbing most likely though some access with a bucket truck is available via the drive that goes through the park.

Area B – western park to Emigration Creek bridge

• Fire hazards to historic structures
  • Per fire wise guidelines: pruning and removal of limbs within 10 feet of roofs and exterior walls of historic buildings within the park. Removal of dead limbs that have fallen on structures / on to roofs of structures.
• Ladder fuel control
  • Limbing trees to between 6-10’ in height
  • Bucking and removing dead and downed woody materials found on the ground
  • Invasive Tree of Heaven
    • Removal of tree of heaven smaller than 5” DBH
    • All removals to have stumps treated with oil based Triclopyr per label with blue dye additive.

Area C – eastern park past Emigration Creek bridge

• Same as Area B (above) plus:
• Stump grinding
  • Grinding of stump in front meadow (Project manager to confirm)

Grinding of stump (4’ diameter) in front of duplex on south side of Allen Park Drive

Location