Arbor & Slash

If you have a wooded lot up in the High Country, especially in a National Forest, you need this service! Just talk with any local fire protection district and they'll tell you that maintaining your property by culling standing dead, ladder fuels, and removing slash from the ground is essential to saving your home in the event of a forest fire. Thankfully, we have all the tools to deal with your clearing needs so read through our Wildfire Awareness page and please reach out to help do your part to care for our National Forests.

When we clear slash, we focus on meeting the best practices detailed by the National Forest Service for fire danger reduction , but we also try to balance owner aesthetics, fire danger reduction needs, and wildlife habitat preservation. There’s no need to leave your property looking like a moonscape.

After an epic and disastrous 2020 fire season, we can clearly see that our forests are under intense pressure. Since autumn of 2020, we have been donating a portion of arbor proceeds to both the Northwest Fire Protection District and Third Millennium Alliance, an NGO in South America focused on revitalizing deforested rainforest. We chose to donate a portion of our gross arbor related receipts to the NWFPD to help with any of their budgetary shortfalls as they work tirelessly to protect our corner of Park County. Meanwhile, donating to Third Millennium Alliance helps to offset the carbon that we’re releasing through our slash reduction services.

Thinning & Standing Dead

Thinning the trees on your property is very important in order to maintain a healthy forest, but also helps in reducing potential loss of your home in a forest fire.

Standing dead (trees) should also be culled because, among many reasons, they allow fires to creep up more easily into the crown.

We also suggest that stumps are pulled in high traffic areas and the hole is then backfilled.

Ladder Fuels & Slash

Ladder fuels are all the branches on a tree from the ground up to about 15-20'. It's good to cut ladder fuel most importantly because it helps to prevent a fire from creeping up trees. Plus, trimming these branches increases your visibility and just plain looks better.

Slash, on the other hand, are all the dead bits and pieces of branches that have broken off and fallen to the ground, drying out and providing a lot of ground-level fuel for fires. It's always a good idea to pile, pick up, then haul off slash, or have the County come and chip it.

We do not chip slash and leave it on your property. We either haul off all slash to the dump or call the County to chip it. The NWFPD always suggests removing all fire fuels from the forest floor. If you want some landscaping done, having rock brought in is always best when considering potential fire hazards.

Winter Preparations

One of the best ways to prepare for Winter is to have lots of wood cut, split, and stacked, ready to go in your wood burning stove. It doesn't matter if you have a simple decorative fire or one for heating, having plenty of wood at the ready is best for those long, cold, and dark January evenings.

We'll help you clear your property and any wood you'd like to keep, we'll cut, split, and stack for you. The rest, we'll haul away for you.

Increased Wildfire Risks

In recent years, we have had the Weston Pass fire and a 2 acre fire right here in Valley of the Sun. In order to protect our community it is extremely important that property owners begin and maintain slash removal to reduce fire danger to our community. Performing slash removal will improve your home’s chances of surviving a wild fire and it can reduce your homeowners insurance premium. Please review our Wildfire Awareness page and reach out to us to get a quote on slash removal services.