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metal can help to protect the building from a fire. A roofmg material such as cedar shake shingles will reduce the chance of the building's survival. Exterior finishes such as brick or stucco are more fire resistant than finishes such as wood siding or logs. Fuel Breaks Fuel breaks, as the name implies, provide a line of defense where a fire theoretically will not cross and continue to bum on the other side of the break. A roadway can be used as the basis for a fuel break, combined with forest thinning on one or both sides of the road. The required width of thinning depends on factors such as topography and fuel type. The minimum recommended width for a fuel break is 200 feet. Forest Wide Thinning The objectives of forest wide thinning are to reduce fuel loading, increase forest health, and improve aesthetics. In dense forests, fires quickly change from relatively harmless ground fires to catastrophic crown fires because of the "fuel ladder" effect. In a thinned forest, the fire will likely stay a ground fire, and will probability do little damage. 5. Watershed Recovery The natural recovery of the burned areas in the Buffalo Creek vicinity could be a long process. Fortunately, with the aggressive reclamation actions by the U.S. Forest Service and the Colorado State Forest Service, the initial stages of the recovery should be enhanced and accelerated. The hydrologic response of the burned watersheds will depend on the level of vegetative and soil surface recovery. Following are some key phases to the recovery process: . Break-up of hydrophobic (water repellent) soils . Recovery of native grasses, forbs, and shrubs . Recovery of native trees . Recovery of humus layer (organic layer at soil surface) The effects of an intense fire on the watershed's soil structure and hydrology can be significant. The following key points about the effects of fire on soil and hydrology were extracted from U.S. Forest Service publications. . For arid areas of the southwestern U.S., vegetative regrowth after a severe burning can be very slow. · Coarse textured soils are more likely to become highly water repellent than fine clay soils. . Lodgepole and Ponderosa Pine forests have displayed high water repellency after burning. · Soil formed from granitic parent material are sensitive to erosion. The erosion rate is a function of the burn intensity. . For a recently burned watershed, peak streamflows have been reported to be 2 to 60 times greater than normal after a heavy rain. 28