About a dozen people attended a meeting Thursday in Prescott to hear about the Forest Service’s proposal to thin out overcrowded trees and brush on 55,000 acres surrounding the southern boundary of Prescott over the next decade or more.

Federal officials plan to use a combination of fire, timber sales, brush crushing, goats and chain saws to accomplish their goal.

Over the past decade, Prescott Forest officials have thinned out trees and brush on about 21,600 acres.

Several speakers praised the Forest Service for its efforts to protect Prescott and surrounding areas from catastrophic wildfires.

“I’d rather smell smoke from a controlled burn than from my house,” said local resident Billy Fields.

“The wildlife I’m seeing is just unreal since the burning has been going on the last four or five years,” Fields said.

Bradshaw District Ranger Laura Jo West said the effort to keep the forest healthy through proper tree and brush removal is a never-ending project.

“We’re going to be in there a lot if we’re going to maintain these systems,” she said. “Fire and thinning are going to be part of life here.”

Prescott Wildland/Urban Interface Commission citizen member Everett Warnock said the public is starting to understand the goals of good forest management.

“There is so much evidence that the public is starting to understand we can manage our forest,” Warnock said.

Warnock noted the region now has eight “Firewise Communities” that have earned that designation from the national Firewise program.

Recently, the forest received $1.6 million in federal stimulus money for mechanical brush-crushing operations on 6,000 acres of chaparral-choked forest around Prescott and Cherry starting this summer.

It got the money because projects were ready to go, and private companies will do the work.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.