Prospect for improvement

The folks in Trout Canyon aren’t the only private landowners still recovering from the 2013 Carpenter 1 Fire.

The owners of Prospect Springs

Ranch, on the eastern slope of the Spring Mountains, are also getting ready to rebuild some of what they lost.

Barry Becker, who owns the 39-acre weekend retreat with 10 other families, said the partners are in the process of submitting plans to Clark County to rebuild the lodge, cabin and outbuilding destroyed in the fire.

The property’s signature attraction — a tree-lined, spring-fed pond stocked with trout — has been restored, which took about a year. Baker said that shortly after the fire, ash and other debris washed into the pond, fouling the water and killing all the fish.

Firefighters fought hard to protect the property back then, Baker said, but a sudden shift in the wind overcame their defenses. “They did a hell of a job,” he said.

Prospect Springs Ranch sits inside a roughly 19,000-acre area that’s still closed to the public while scarred landscape recovers, but Baker and company are allowed to access their land and frequently do.

Baker said the healing is already well on its way.

“All the underbrush is back to where it was before the fire, in my opinion,” he said. “We’re just missing the pinyon trees and the junipers.”

Henry Brean