Heat map could help Boise know where to plant its trees. How Idaho teens are helping

On a hot August day, Idaho teens stood around monitors attached to stationed wooden poles in Boise’s Borah Park to record the extreme temperatures . Conservation advocates said that data could be key to help map out the city’s heat.

The group was part of the Idaho Conservation Corps, a program of Northwest Youth Corps that teaches teens and young adults conservation efforts, to compare the daily heat in different locations and collect data on how tree canopies can cool down areas. The project was in partnership with Community Adaption to Climate Change Strategies, an Oregon-based company that provides climate action planning.

Heat monitoring was just one of the Idaho Conservation Corps’ projects supported by a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture aimed at urban forestry projects in low-income areas.

“It is definitely a really good thing to learn about conservation and learn about how to better preserve the Earth and preserve the areas that we all frequent as a community,” said Vanessa Oxford, a Borah High School student and member of the youth crew.

The monitoring stations, set up in four different Boise neighborhoods, are checked three times a week. At the end of the summer, the crew plans to create heat maps of the area and share the data with city officials and the Treasure Valley Canopy Network, a nonprofit that works to improve the Treasure Valley’s urban forest, to help inform them where planting trees would be the most beneficial, said Destiny Hanson, an Idaho Conservation Corps lead.

Knowing which areas of Boise are the hottest will also be useful for homeowners, Hanson told the Statesman. The Treasure Valley Canopy Network has free and discounted trees, which people can apply for and receive trees to cool down their property, Hanson told the Statesman.

Dominic Martinez, Idaho Conservation Corps program manager, said she thinks the city could also look at whether the team’s heat date correlates to neighborhood crime rates. City reports nationwide have shown that crime rates increase as outside temperatures get hotter .

Smoke, air pollutants and extreme heat hitting the Treasure Valley this summer posed a challenge for the Idaho Conservation Corps’ outdoor projects. This summer they targeted low-impact work for the crews, which included the heat map, said Martinez.

“With the smoke, it’s been pretty detrimental these past few weeks to the flow, and that’s OK. We change the projects we do,” Martinez told the Statesman. “We are not going to risk anyone’s health.”

When temperatures are cooler, and the air quality is good, the crew can be found at Florence Park weeding tree bases in partnership with Boise Parks and Recreation. Weeds and grass surrounding a tree base can out-compete a tree for water and nutrients and damage the tree roots, and spreading mulch around the trees can protect them, Martinez explained.

Martinez also hopes to get approval from fire districts within the next year for the Idaho Conservation Corps to remove fuels from susceptible areas in an effort to reduce the number of fires that start in the Treasure Valley

After the grant expires, Northwest Youth Corps plans to apply for another to continue conservation efforts, and so far, the crews have received “nothing but glowing reviews” from their project partners, Martinez said.