By Eve Newman

Boomerang Outdoors Writer

The U.S. Forest Service is continuing its work to mitigate the effects of the mountain pine beetle epidemic in the Laramie Ranger District, with that work likely to continue for the next few years.

The current focus is protecting areas where structures and human developments meet national forest lands, know as wildland-urban interface areas, or WUIs.

Work should start this summer on the South Wildland Urban Interface Project that will include creating firebreaks and removing hazard trees, Laramie District Ranger Larry Sandoval said.

Plans are under way for similar work in the northern part of the county, with work likely to start the summer after next and include efforts to protect the water supplies of Laramie, Cheyenne and Rock River, Sandoval said.

Work has already started on the Spruce Gulch Fuels Reduction Project, which includes treatments across 40,000 acres. The project included one timber sale that was awarded in September, with more sales upcoming. Sandoval said there is interest in the timber, all of it dead or dying because of the beetles, and the recent sale had two bidders.

“That was very encouraging,” he said.

Planning started in 2008 for a similar landscape-scale project called the Shellrock Bark Beetle Fuels Reduction Project, though that work will be deferred to focus on the urban interface areas.

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