Forest Fuels Data Collection:

During the summer and fall of 2005, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe brought a team of interns from The Student Conservation Association (SCA) to the reservation. The SCA team was hired to work with the GIS office to collect data on forested land. The GIS department is going to use the data to develop a fuels map of the reservation to help them assess wildfire risk and danger to structures in the Wildland Urban Interface.

The SCA team collected much of their data on Continual Forest Inventory (CFI) plots located on forested land owned by the Tribe. The team also collected data on lands owned by Potlatch, Inland Empire Paper, and the Idaho Department of Lands. Though most data was collected within the reservation itself, the team also spent a large amount of time in the surrounding Benewah County Area.

For nine weeks during the summer, the SCA team had the chance to work with tribal youth interns. These youth (ages 14-16) were hired by the Tribe for the summer to work with the GIS office and SCA crew. Two different groups of four interns helped collect data with the SCA team. The tribal youth saw a lot of rarely visited land around the reservation, and got the chance to navigate to work locations using GPS units.

A complete report of the SCA's activities on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation can be found as a PDF from this link.