SEELEY LAKE - The Lolo National Forest is proposing to harvest trees burned by the Rice Ridge Fire. A public meeting will be held Jan. 10 from 5 - 7 p.m. at the Seeley Lake Chamber of Commerce, 2920 MT Highway 83 to provide information and answer questions related to the Rice Ridge Fire Salvage Project. Members of the planning team will be in attendance and Seeley Lake District Ranger Rachel Feigley encourages all those who are interested and/or affected by the project to attend. The deadline for comment is Jan. 22.
During the 2017 fire season, multiple wildfires burned over 227,000 acres of the Lolo NF, affecting approximately 10 percent of the Forest’s land base. The largest fire was Rice Ridge affecting approximately 160,000 acres. Of this, about 159,430 acres were on National Forest (106,487 acres on the Lolo NF and 52,944 acres on the Flathead NF, 58 acres of State land and 513 acres of private land). The Flathead NF lands are within the Bob Marshall Wilderness and are not proposed for treatment in this project.
The fire burned with varying severity, leaving a mosaic of burn patterns on the landscape that range from unburned islands to areas where tree crowns were completely consumed. Many affected areas were burned by moderate to severe surface or crown fires that consumed all or most of the organic material on the forest floor. Viewed from a distance, some forest stands may still appear green because the tree crowns were not burned. However, in many of these areas, the trees are actually dead or dying as their roots were killed by the intense heat of the fire.
About 38 percent of the Rice Ridge fire burned areas of the Seeley Lake Ranger District allocated as suitable for timber production in the Lolo Forest Plan. Harvest is proposed on 4,838 acres: 2,046 acres by tractor logging and 2,792 acres of skyline logging. This represents roughly three percent of the National Forest land burned in the Rice Ridge Fire.
In order to facilitate timely implementation of this project, the Lolo National Forest is proposing to request an Emergency Situation Determination. Only the Chief and Associate Chief of the Forest Service may grant an ESD.
Purpose and Need for Action
• Recover the economic value of forest products in a timely manner to contribute to employment and income in local communities and avoid loss of commodity value.
The Rice Ridge Fire Salvage project is located within Missoula and Powell Counties on the Seeley Lake Ranger District. National Forest Service land makes up 52 and 43 percent, respectively, of the land base of these counties.
Currently, Montana’s forest products industry is one of the largest components of manufacturing in the state and employs roughly 7,700 workers earning about $335 million in compensation annually. Harvesting burned material would provide jobs associated with logging and milling and contribute to the supply of timber from Forest Service land, about 60 percent of the forest land in Montana.
Timely implementation of salvage operations is necessary because the volume and quality of wood products deteriorate rapidly after fire. Insects (primarily beetles), stain and decay fungi, and weather all act as deterioration agents in fire-killed trees.
In addition to volume loss, timber can lose value due to the types of products or grade of products that can be manufactured from a log or tree. On average, product deterioration in the project areas is expected be 10 to 15 percent in the first year after the fire and 30 percent or more in year two.
More importantly, as dead trees deteriorate, they pose substantial safety hazards to forest workers. A combination of ground-based and cable yarding would be used to remove the fire-killed trees from within proposed salvage units.
• Reduce hazards threatening human health and safety
Within the Rice Ridge burned areas, approximately 142 miles of road that are open at least seasonally to public motorized travel are at elevated risks to hazards including falling snags and fire-weakened trees. Although some hazard trees have already been felled along open roads, without a more substantial effort to address high-risk trees, these hazards will continue to affect safe access for recreation, and ongoing and future management activities. Cutting hazard trees along roads would improve the safety of forest users and maintain motorized access.
• Re-establish forested conditions and/or facilitate recovery to meet management objectives outlined in the Forest Plan.
The fire caused high levels of tree mortality in some areas. In some areas that burned at high severity, there is limited seed source remaining for natural tree regeneration.
The National Forest Management Act requires that all suitable forested land in the Forest Service be maintained in appropriate forest cover with species of trees, degree of stocking, rate of growth and conditions of stand designed to secure the maximum benefits of multiple use sustained yield management in accordance with land management plans.
Proposed Action
The proposed action includes harvesting dead, dying, and diseased timber, cutting hazard trees along roads and planting tree seedlings. The proposed activities would likely begin in late summer of 2018, with harvest and associated activities completed in two years. Tree planting could occur for up to 10 years or more depending on funding and availability of planting stock.
Harvesting dead and dying trees is proposed on approximately 4,838 acres: 2,046 acres by tractor logging and 2,792 acres of skyline logging.
To access some of the proposed harvest units, approximately 32 miles of temporary road would be constructed. About 16 miles of these roads would be new construction whereas about 16 miles would be constructed on a previously decommissioned road or an undetermined (“non-system”) road.
Incidental merchantable hazard trees within 150 feet of both sides of seasonally or year-round open Forest Service roads outside harvest units would be commercially removed where practicable to reduce safety hazards in the short and long term.
Tree planting is proposed on approximately 11,533 acres, including all areas identified for salvage. Depending on site conditions, western larch, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, Douglas-fir, Engelmann spruce and whitebark pine seedlings may be planted.
Opportunity to Comment
Please provide comments addressing the proposed action by Jan. 22. If you would like to receive future mailings about this project, please send your comments or request to remain on the mailing list.
Submit comments to: Tami Paulsen, Team Leader, 24 Fort Missoula Road, Missoula, MT 59804, or call 406-329-1049. Comments can be hand delivered to the Seeley Lake or Missoula Ranger Districts between 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Monday – Friday.
Electronic comments may be sent to: comments-northern-lolo-seeleylake@fs.fed.us. Acceptable formats for electronic comments include word perfect, rtf, or MS word.
Comments received in response to this solicitation, including names and addresses of those who comment, will be considered part of the public record and will be available for public inspection.
For more information, please contact Tami Paulsen, Team Leader, at 406-329-3731. Additional project information can be found at: http://www.fs.usda.gov/projects/lolo/landmanagement/projects.
Proposed treatments and associated transportation system can be found at: http://a123.g.akamai.net/7/123/11558/abc123/forestservic.download.akamai.com/11558/www/nepa/108320_FSPLT3_4119639.pdf
Reader Comments(0)