Colorado largest wildfire touched off ten years ago Friday. When it was finally contained 鈥� the Hayman fire southwest of Denver had scarred 138,000 acres. A unique restoration partnership between the US Forest Service and the National Forest Foundation continues to restore critical watersheds struggling to recover a decade later.
Today, local government officials, the US Forest Service, and citizens gathered in the to commemorate the anniversary of the blaze, and the completion of a 3 year restoration project spearheaded by the US Forest Service and the . Mary Mitsos is the group鈥檚 vice president鈥�
鈥淚 think when people are offered the opportunity to help repair their backyard, restore their backyard; they鈥檙e going to jump at it.鈥�
More than 17,000 volunteers worked 105,000 hours on the Hayman Restoration Project planting 1 million trees and re-seeding thousands of acres of damaged land around a critical watershed for Denver.
Mitsos says the partnership is a departure for the Forest Service which has traditionally conducted wildfire restoration on their own. She adds that it could/will serve as a model for future wildfire restoration efforts around the country.
