Mexican Spotted Owls and Fire, Appendix B:  Individual Territory Summaries and Maps

Burned Territories

The Red Hill territory (MT #040224) is located on the Coconino National Forest southwest of Flagstaff, AZ. The original territory size is 305 hectares (753 acres) and the addition of our 1-km radius circle increased our survey area to 552 ha (1,365 ac). The original territory ranges in elevation from 1,945 - 2,224 meters (6,381 - 7,297 feet) and has a fairly equal distribution of north-, east-, south- and west-facing slopes. The average slope over the territory is 14.6 . The Red Hill territory was paired with the unburned Bunker Hill territory located approximately 7 kilometers to the south.

Along with the Upper West Fork territory, the Red Hill territory was burned by the Hog/Red Hill Prescribed Fire in 1994 (Peaks 1996). Red Hill was also burned fairly severely in 1988 during another phase of the same Red Hill Prescribed Fire project, before the Forest Service was aware that there were spotted owls in the area (Peaks 1990). We had 88 habitat survey points within this original territory boundary and 72% of these showed no evidence of recent fire. 28% showed only evidence of ground fire and no points showed any sign of canopy or complete stand-replacement burn. 0% of the survey points were inaccessible or otherwise not surveyed.

Prior to the fire, 50% of the territory had a Pine cover type, 40% had a mixture of Pine and Oak, and 6% had a Mixed-Conifer cover type. 5% was classified as "Other".