Fishing Forum

Don't know if it was an accidental fire or a prescribed burn but a lot of the shore weeds near the beach south of the Lindon harbor has been burned. Does this happen every year or is it a new thing?

It seems to have been burned from the north side of the beach up to the bubble-up.

I did see a fire truck and a couple police cars putting out a roadside fire further up the road and am wondering if someone set the fire down by the beach as well.
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I don't know if was a prescribed burn or not. But I can say that for the last couple of years it has been burned. Last year I know it was a farmer who did the burning. So I am betting it is done each year as part of weed control.
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I hope

it was done on purpose. To find out why check out this thread and the news link below from the Daily Herald:

[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=141389;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread"]http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=141389;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread[/url]

[url "http://archive.harktheherald.com/archive_detail.php?archiveFile=./pubfiles/prv/archive/2004/July/12/LocalCity/25774.xml&start=0&numPer=20&keyword=invasive+plant&sectionSearch=&begindate=1%2F1%2F2004&enddate=7%2F15%2F2004&authorSearch=&IncludeStories=1&pubsection=&page=&IncludePages=1&IncludeImages=1&mode=allwords&archive_pubname=Heraldextra.com%0A2509%09"]http://archive.harktheherald.com/archive_detail.php?archiveFile=./pubfiles/prv/archive/2004/July/12/LocalCity/25774.xml&start=0&numPer=20&keyword=invasive+plant§ionSearch=&begindate=1%2F1%2F2004&enddate=7%2F15%2F2004&authorSearch=&IncludeStories=1&pubsection=&page=&IncludePages=1&IncludeImages=1&mode=allwords&archive_pubname=Heraldextra.com%0A%09%09%09[/url]
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Phragmites Fire Date July 12, 2004





Caleb Warnock

DAILY HERALD

Last Saturday night, Mark Ridderhoff of Saratoga Springs got a good night's sleep.

Now he regrets it.

Around 4:30 that afternoon, fireworks around the edge of Utah Lake sparked a blaze in the reeds known as Phragmites australis. The flames quickly erupted into a 60-acre wildfire that came within feet of burning down dozens of homes, including Ridderhoff's.

Fire crews had the fire under control by 3 a.m., and Ridderhoff and his family went to bed. But the next morning, a breeze from the lake fanned embers in the Phragmites again.

"I ran out on the back patio and saw a small fire that suddenly went straight up and became a rushing column of fire," Ridderhoff said. "In a couple of minutes there were 50-foot flames coming toward the house. We'd gone to bed thinking the danger was over, but now I kind of wish we'd taken shifts to watch the fire through the night."

For the second time in 12 hours, firefighters managed to save homes in the area with only moments to spare.

Phragmites is a dense, [red]invasive plant[/red] from Europe that grows over 20 feet tall. The forests of it around Utah Lake are not only fueling wildfires like the ones in Saratoga Springs, but harboring West Nile virus-spreading mosquitoes, ruining historic sandy beaches, wrecking critical wildlife habitat, overtaking all native vegetation, and making vast stretches of shoreline impassable to fishermen and recreationists.

In short, Phragmites may be shaping up to be an ecological disaster in Utah County.

Over the past 15 years, Phragmites has quietly destroyed most of the important waterfowl habitat around Utah Lake, said Craig Searle of the Utah County Noxious Weed program. In many places the plant has spread 100 yards into the lake from the shoreline,

Because the plant harbors millions or even billions of mosquito larvae -- all possibly laden with the West Nile virus -- Phragmites is potentially one of Utah County's largest public health hazards, said Lewis Marrott, director of the Utah County Mosquito Abatement Program.

Hundreds of acres of land around Utah Lake's shoreline have been taken over by Phragmites, said David Lee of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. The plants, which don't provide food for birds, crowds out the plants that do. Only one herbicide that kills the plant has been approved for use in wetland areas, but multiple applications over several years are needed. The spray is only effective during a short time each spring when the plants' first tassels come out.

"In the past, in state waterfowl management areas, we've aerial sprayed it, but the cost can run from $100 to $200 an acre when you count the airplane time and chemical," he said. "And that is just one spraying; then you have to figure on second and third treatments."

Even if money could be found to pay for aerial spraying, disputes over the boundary of private and public land on the lake's edge have kept any state or local agency from fighting the plant, Searle said.

It is unclear how the plant came to Utah, but a single stem can produce tens of thousands of seeds, he said. And even if the plant is burned to the ground, it sprouts again from its roots, taking over more shoreline each year.

Saratoga Springs Fire Chief Dave Vickers said the city will not remove the plants.

"We've actually completed a fire assessment plan for our community and identified Phragmites as the highest hazard in our community," he said. "Part of that plan was to educate those that are in the affected area to get together and mitigate the area. It is not our responsibility as the fire department to go and clear it out -- we don't have the manpower or money to do that."

The homeowners association where Ridderhoff lives will have to pay to remove the plant, but only after obtaining a permit from the Utah Division of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers, Vickers said.

Ridderhoff, who is a member of the homeowners association board where he lives, said the property boundary along the lake is unclear. And there is no funding to combat the ever-spreading plant.

"Only half of the homes in this area have been sold," he said. "When they are all sold, we'll have enough money to do something, but not until then. This Phragmites is a major problem. We don't want to alarm people and say we are sitting on a tinderbox and it is unsafe to live here, but we need a defensible space between our houses and this burnable brush."

On the day of the second fire that threatened his home, fire crews used two chain saws to clear a 3-foot-wide barrier of Phragmites from behind his home, Ridderhoff said.

The night after the second fire, Ridderhoff said he asked police to respond to several incidents of illegal fireworks that were set off within feet of the Phragmites along the lake shore near his home.

"It's people who live here, who saw this fire and still felt the need to set these off," he said. "We are approximately two weeks away from July 24th, another opportunity to light fireworks, and I don't think I can cut this plant away from my yard, much less my neighbors' yards, between now and then. It touches the houses in some places."

Lee said organizing money and authority to attack the problem around all of Utah Lake will be a daunting effort.

"I know about the long history of litigation surrounding Utah Lake and land owners," he said. "When people are talking about ownership of the lake, everyone says they own it; but when there is a problem, no one steps up. It is going to have to be a cooperative effort."

º Caleb Warnock can be reached at 344-2543 or cwarnock@heraldextra.com.
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