there will be multiple rounds of distributions. Checks to recipients will come from the Pinedale Lions Club where all donations are being held.

Applications and guidelines are available at the Bondurant Library and Post Office. The guidelines are also available online at the following links: http://bit.ly/roosevelt-guidelines. Applications can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/roosevelt-print-applications or http://bit.ly/roosevelt-e-application.

First round applications must be returned to the Pinedale Lions Club, P.O. Box 508, Pinedale, WY, 82941 by Monday, Oct. 22. The committee will work quickly and expect to have checks out to approved recipients by the end of the month.

Subsequent application periods will be announced as funds become available.

Questions may be sent to [email protected]. Applicants can also contact Mindi Crabb of the Pinedale Lions Club at 307-231-0942 or Chris Lacinak of the Bondurant Community Club at 917-548-8632.

If you would like to support the Roosevelt Fire Recovery Fund, donations can be made at the links provided above. Donors can also send checks to: Lions of Wyoming Foundation, 224 Talon Ct., Cheyenne, Wyo., 82009. Include “Roosevelt Fire” in the memo line.

Fire-recovery tips for here and now

By Joy Ufford, [email protected]

BONDURANT – A group of local experts offered suggestions and tips for property owners affected by the Roosevelt Fire who want to do something – now.

“Wait until next spring and see what comes back” was the most commonly shared advice on Tuesday, Oct. 10, at the Bondurant Elementary School.

The gym was filled with staff from Sublette County Unified Fire, Wyoming Game and Fish, Sublette County Conservation District, Forest Service, Natural Resource Conservation Service, Sublette County Weed & Pest, Sublette County Sheriff’s Office, Sublette County Emergency Management, Forest Service BAER Team and University of Wyoming Extension,

Each agency had tables filled with information from rebuilding a fire-resistant structure to felling dead “snags” to preventing driveway and road erosion. They answered many questions from landowners around the Roosevelt Fire.

“We’ve had a little bit of practice at this with the Fontenelle Fire and Cliff Creek Fire,” said SCCD manager Mike Henn. “This is the first time we’ve had this much private property affected.”

He shared photos of steady regrowth of shrubs, grasses, wildflowers and trees after forest fires, saying, “Mother Nature’s going to respond to this fire pretty fast.”

Here are simple and timely tips to deal with burned trees and bare ground.

• Be cautious about introducing any seed mixes that might contain weed seeds.

• Cut or drag burned trees and logs across a slope on the contour and anchor them with stumps or stakes in front to slow sediment runoff. The same thing can work with straw bales.

• Carry or keep handy chainsaws or axes to clear roads of fallen snags.

• A mulcher can chew up smaller, less damaged trees to spread chips across bare ground – but not too thickly.

• Landowners might want to buy SCCD trees seedlings; others might decide to buy large trees – both should wait until spring.

• Consider the acrid black ashes as free fertilizer feeding carbon into the soil.

• Remove melted plastics, propane tanks and flammable fluids and dispose of them properly at the Marbleton dump.

• Ask contractors to consider washing equipment before bringing it in.

• Download the Forest Service’s free Burned Area Emergency Response Treatments Catalogue with extensive recovery information from www.fs.fed.us/eng/pubs/.

Emergency weed treatments

The Sublette County Weed & Pest District Board has authorized spending $10,000 per year for the next three years for Hoback Ranches and other property owners whose roads and landscapes are affected by the Roosevelt Fire. Key targets will be cheatgrass, spotted knapweed and other invasive species that often emerge from burned ground. For more information, contact Weed & Pest manager Julie Kraft at 307-367-4728 or 307-320-5047.

Wyoming’s wolf-hunting season opened in southwest Hunt Area 12 yesterday, Oct. 15, with seasonal trophy-game tags only in a corridor where gray wolves are also considered predators part of the year.

From Oct. 15 of this year through Feb. 28, 2019, wolves are “seasonal” trophy-game animals in the Star Valley area to provide seasonal protections for wolves traveling through in late autumn or winter, perhaps to meet up with another wolf or pack.

However, the actual hunting season only runs through Dec. 31 or until the quota of two harvested wolves is met, according to Wyoming Game and Fish.

From March 1 through Oct. 14, wolves in this particular hunt area are considered predatory animals that can be shot without a license from Game and Fish, although the kills must be reported, according to regulations.

Wolf hunts throughout Wyoming’s other trophy-game hunt areas opened on Sept. 1. The total quota in Wyoming’s 2018 season is 58 wolves with different limits in each specific hunt area. A total of 16 wolves have been taken as trophy-game since Sept. 1 and that season closes on Dec. 31, whether or not quotas are filled.

So far this season, none of the quotas are filled in any of the Game and Fish hunt areas, leaving all hunt areas open at this time

For example, hunt areas 8, 9 and 11 report four wolves taken as of Oct. 11 against a limit of 15. Oct. 11 is the last date that a wolf harvest was reported and the charts are updated after a new report.

Hunt Area 1 shows three wolves taken as of Oct. 11 with a quota of seven; HA 2 has two taken against a quota of eight; HA 3 has two taken and a quota of six. HA 4 has three taken with a quota of four; in HA 5 with a three-wolf quota, none were taken as of Oct. 11.

HA 10 has none taken against a quota of five; HA 12 has none taken with a quota of two and HA 14 has none reported taken with a quota of one.

Game and Fish advises hunters to always check on the status of hunt area closures 24 hours a day by calling the Gray Wolf Mortality Hotline at 1-800-264-1280 or going to https://wgfd.wyo.gov/Hunting/Trophy- Game-Harvest-Limits.

For complete wolf hunt-area maps and regulations, go to https://wgfd.wyo.gov or visit the Pinedale Regional Office, 432 E. Mill St., Pinedale.