Fort Valley Restoration Project

The Fort Valley Project was an experiment designed to test forest treatments that were intended to restore natural ecological qualities and reduce the hazard of intense wildfire in the urban/wildland interface around Flagstaff, Arizona. The primary goal of the project was the reverse the degradation of ponderosa pine ecosystems by restoring their structure and function along with the natural disturbance regimes that were characteristic of their evolutionary environment. Experiment was conducted on 1700 acres to test effectiveness of treatment on species presence and plant cover. The project was carried out through a collaboration among Greater Flagstaff Forests Partnership, the USDA Forest Service, and Northern Arizona University.