Healing after Hayman will take years

Larry and Marilyn Kuhlman have a close-up view of the Pike National Forest as it tries to find some equilibrium two years after the state's largest wildfire burned through it.

It isn't always a pretty sight, as many folks touched by the Hayman fire have begun to realize.

Rebirth is under way in the forest, but it will take years.

The Kuhlmans spent days last week cleaning up 2 feet of water and ash-blackened mud from the lower level of their cabin in the Sportman's Paradise subdivision north of Lake George.

When that was done, they and 11 young volunteers from the Tri- Lakes United Methodist Church stacked sandbags against a hydrologist- designed retaining wall that didn't prevent a July 16 flash flood from carving a stream down their driveway and pouring into the cabin.

"The cabin spent 12 happy years as a vacation home, and then someone started a fire and it's been hell ever since," said Marilyn Kuhlman. "People think the fire was it, but it's just starting."

The Kuhlmans and scores of other property owners in Teller, Park and Douglas counties are learning the hard way that after fire comes flooding.

Recent rains have caused flash flooding, road closures, washout and dam breaches throughout the 137,0000 acres burned by the Hayman fire.

The damage from the flooding is estimated at $1.5 million in Teller County, prompting elected officials to declare a state of emergency.

The problems aren't over. It could be years -- decades in some severely burned areas -- before the forest heals itself enough to keep water from rushing downhill pell-mell.

The water floods homes, breaks dams, steals grazing land from ranchers, sparks the spread of noxious weeds and fills rivers with mud that lowers water quality and kills fish.

The U.S. Forest Service, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Coalition for the Upper South Platte, a nonprofit watershed protection group, have spent big dollars and volunteered thousands of hours on hundreds of rehabilitation projects in public and private burn areas.

Mulch was spread and grass seed sown. Dead trees and straw bales were used in some areas to impede water runoff from hillsides.

Some rehabilitation projects have worked. Some haven't.

After receiving money for rehab projects in the year after the fire, the Forest Service had its funding drastically cut for all but the most pressing projects this year.

The Hayman Restoration Team, which planned to coordinate projects for three to five years, will be disbanded this fall, and projects will have to be picked up and paid for by the three ranger districts in the Pike National Forest.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service, which spent $2 million on emergency watershed protection projects on private land in 2003, doesn't have much money left for rehabilitation projects, although it still is offering expertise and volunteers on some projects, said Leon Kot, district conservationist.

Theresa Springer, environmental education coordinator for the Coalition for the Upper South Platte, said the group conducted 350 to 400 rehabilitation projects using 7,000 to 8,000 volunteers during the past two years.

Many were attempts to protect homes, such as bringing in the church group to help the Kuhlmans.

She said the group must rank its projects, however, shifting focus from protecting property to improving water quality.

The group is concentrating on the Trail Creek Road area in the Pikes Peak Ranger District and the Wigwam Creek in the South Platte Ranger District, she said. It is deciding which projects to tackle in the South Park Ranger District.

"We're trying to find the worst things to correct that will help water quality," she said while driving along the South Platte River through the gated Sportsman's Paradise subdivision. "The water quality sucks. Some days you come down here, and it looks like chocolate milk."

There is some good news.

Surveys reveal the Hayman perimeter encompassed 137,000 acres -- but 21,000 acres in that area are unscathed.

Additionally, 50 percent of the land that burned was licked by low- or moderate-intensity fire, which can clear cluttered forest floors and spark a rejuvenation of trees, shrubs and grasses.

About 35 percent of the fire area, 47,865 acres, suffered the worst the fire could offer.

Although many steep mountainsides remain void of vegetation, other parts of the forests show signs of rebirth. Wildflowers, native grasses and aspen sprouts can be seen, and 23,000 ponderosa pine seedlings planted by the Forest Service last spring are doing well.

The seedlings are in addition to 250,000 growing at the agency's nursery, grown from seeds collected in the Hayman area in October 2002.

Depending on next year's budget, the Forest Service will plant the 250,000 seedlings over a 1,000-acre area next spring.

The service's Hayman rehabilitation team has aerial seeded and mulched more than 4,500 acres, repaired 25 road washouts and cleaned 40 culverts, conducted seven hazardous tree roadside salvage sales totaling 1.4 million board feet, and cleared hazardous trees along 290 miles of road, 717 motorized trails and dozens of hiking trails.

Springer said it won't happen overnight, but the forest that emerges from the ashes will be a prettier, healthier place.

The ponderosa pines will be spaced farther, allowing grasses to create parklike areas.

The aspens that slowly have been disappearing from the forest will come back healthier and in new places. They absorb less water than ponderosas, so more water will flow into rivers and creeks. The sun will reach areas that once stayed dim because of the overgrown forest, and wildlife will thrive on the vegetation that grows there.

Until then, she said, forest dwellers are going to have to keep an eye on the sky and their rain boots and shovels by the door.

Larry Kuhlman, a dentist in Wichita, Kan., surveyed the fast- flowing creek that runs down the dirt driveway feet from his Lake George cabin and reckoned he'll just have to "make lemonade from lemons."

"I might be able to fish right from the deck," he deadpanned.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0197 or mckeown@gazette.com

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