Babylon Fire repairs continue

by David Boyle
News Director
Repair and restoration efforts continue to make progress on the Babylon Fire. The fire that burned 107,000 acres in the blue mountains remains at 95-percent contained with crews continuing to work in the fire area.
On Monday July 27 command of the Babylon Fire was transferred from the Great Basin Incident Management Team 6 to a local Type 3 Incident Management Team.
Officials noted that while the transition is a milestone, there still remains significant work across the fire area. Firefighters and resource specialists are continuing suppression repair, hazard tree mitigation, road and trail assessments, and other recovery efforts to help prepare the area for the safe return of the public according to an official release.
Officials also emphasize that some closures remain in effect across the forest are in place to protect the public as well as the personnel working in the fire area.
As part of efforts the forest service Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team gathered data and created a map to show how the Babylon Fire affected soils in the area.
According to that report about 12% of the area was unburned or very lightly affected, and about 33% shows low soil burn severity.
The other half will require monitoring and restoration where possible. 51% of the area map shows moderate soil burn severity, with about 5% showing high soil burn severity.
Moderate and high burn areas will experience more runoff or erosion, especially on steep slopes.
Officials say that’s a normal part of post-fire landscapes and the BAER team is using the information they gathered to identify places to focus efforts with extra attention paid to area recovery that may help protect human life and safety, roads, trails, wildlife habitat, and cultural sites.