Members of the Forest Service conducted a question-and-answer meeting Thursday at the Emery County Court House regarding an upcoming prescribed burn in Emery County.
The burn is designed to shock the aspen trees, which should help them to reproduce and sprout new trees. Aspens don’t reproduce through seeds, so upsetting their current states is an effective way to create reproduction.
The burn should consume about 50-percent of the trees within the burn zone. It is scheduled for late June or early July.
The public should expect smoky skies and brief road and trail closures.
An increased aspen count is expected to help prevent forest fires as well as help improve grazing areas for livestock and wildlife. It should also help improve watershed.
Utah’s aspen population, once around 10 million trees, has dropped to around four million.