Timber salvage pales in scope to area burned

SEELEY LAKE – Just one year after Montana's record-breaking 2017 fire season, the majority of the timber salvage sales in the region have been bid. Although one of the purposes for the US Forest Service salvage projects was to recover the economic value of forest products, design criteria and resource protections limited the scope of salvage opportunities.

As megafires continue to take out suitable timber volume as a viable operation into the future, Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Inc. said the small faction of the burned timber that can be salvaged is unacceptable. They encourage the public to take a more active role in these projects, educate themselves and contact Montana representatives in Washington, D.C. The impact from the fires and limited salvage opportunities on the local economy is huge.

Last October before the smoke had dissipated, the US Forest Service asked Montana's eight mills what their capacity was for burned logs. The mills responded that they could absorb 510 million board feet. When the wood products industry was asked how much they could use, they said 318 million board feet.

"Then it just kept ratcheting down," said Gordy Sanders, Pyramid Mountain Lumber's Resource Manager.

A Regional Approach

Because of the numerous large fires across three national forests, the region formed a Northern Region Post Fire Incident Management Team which led the salvage program and set the design criteria for the sales. The main goals for the regional approach were efficiency and consistency.

"The idea behind the design criteria was to keep a very focused and directed project. We kept out of things that were going to slow us down on the analysis side or the endangered species consultation side," said Steve Brown, Incident Commander of the Northern Region Post Fire Incident Management Team. "We were really trying to keep a clean project that we could get through in the timeline that we had and accomplish that objective to recover the economic value from the timber."

By standardizing the design criteria Brown acknowledged that they may have given up minimal amounts of opportunity for salvage in an area but gained efficiency and avoided potential red flags that could have become litigation points.

Brown said the regional approach was very effective across the three national forests. The Team received a decision on six different categorical exclusion salvage projects in three months, when the average project takes more than eight months from project initiation to decision.

Eight different Environmental Assessments also had decisions within six to eight months, a process that typically takes two years and three months.

Six of the eight Environmental Assessments were expedited because the chief of the Forest Service approved an Emergency Situation Determination. The ESD acknowledged the urgent nature of the situation by removing the pre-decisional objection process which typically adds three months to the planning timeline if an objection is received.

"It was really imperative that timeliness was of the essence," said Brown who highlighted that depending on the species, the timber is no longer suitable after two years. "If we can get our analysis done in that year, that enables implementation to begin within one year post fire."

"What they have done in a year to get this sale out is kind of remarkable but it has been at the expense of their green program and we will feel that going forward," said Pyramid's Chief Operations Officer Loren Rose.

One of the hurdles was consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding bull trout and lynx. Since each biological assessment was completed in the same way, Brown said once the USFWS understood one analysis, they understood them all.

When establishing the design criteria for the proposed salvage units regarding aquatics, Brown said the regional directive came from the cumulative effects on waterways including retardant misapplication, suppression effects that were adverse to a stream and bull trout and cutthroat habitat.

According to the 2011 Nationwide Aerial Application of Fire Retardant on National Forest System Lands, a 300-foot buffer is required for retardant application on either side of waterways unless being used to protect life and safety. Fire retardant misapplications increase the amount of ammonium in the stream channel as an immediate impact. This has a negative impact to fisheries.

"We felt the most streamlined way to get through an otherwise very difficult project to take through consultation [with the USFWS] would be to avoid those areas altogether," said Brown. "We put forth what we thought we could actually get through as opposed to putting forth everything and getting nothing."

Another regional criteria that eliminated a lot of area for salvage harvest included limiting the construction of temporary roads. This was another major negotiation point with the USFWS impacting both bull trout and grizzly bears.

Regional Fisheries Biologist Shane Hendrickson explained when there are multiple years of disturbance, it can affect an entire generation of bull trout. First the year of the fire caused increased sedimentation and other disturbance to bull trout habitat from suppression activities. The year following the fire, the Burned Area Emergency Response pulled and replaced culverts which again disrupts the stream. When salvage is proposed in the third year post-fire, the number of temporary roads and stream crossings can again increase sedimentation and disturbance to the stream.

"If you suppress every age class for five years, you have affected an entire generation [of bull trout]," said Hendrickson. "By going to winter harvest and not building as many temporary roads in those watersheds, we are really detouring a lot of [negative] effects."

The Forest Service sold 121.8 million board feet of salvage volume across the state, a little more than a third of what the industry said they could absorb and a quarter of what the mills said they could handle.

Salvage on the Rice Ridge fire

On the 160,000 acre Rice Ridge fire, 106,500 acres were on the Lolo National Forest. Forest Supervisor Tim Garcia signed the decision for salvage harvest on 3,494 acres with an estimated 24 million board feet of fire-affected timber.

"People need to know that these fires happen and so little is salvaged," said Pyramid's Operations Manager Todd Johnson. "It does make a big difference. The bigger the project, the more loggers are used and being right here in their backyard it does mean income to the community and everything else."

Pyramid's foresters appraised 13,250 million board feet, of the 16,361 million board feet that was advertised for the four sales. This is only 13 percent of the 100 million board feet Pyramid estimated was available in suitable timberland that is roaded and accessible within the Rice Ridge fire.

"When you look at what was forgone for either lynx habitat, misapplication of retardant, riparian areas and a few other things, that throws out 87 million [board] feet," said Sanders. "There are multiple layers of people pulling out concessions. There is nothing black and white about wildlife management so they tend to error on the side of caution."

The historic 10-year average for green timber sales on the Seeley Lake Ranger District has been four million board feet per year. Sanders said the 87 million board feet that will not be harvested was 22 years worth of predictable activity close to the mill.

On the Rice Ridge fire, there were six retardant drops within the 300-foot buffer in waterways within the Trail Creek watershed with one confirmed fish kill and another likely but not confirmed. This along with the two miles of fuel break within 300 feet of Trail Creek and 11 stream crossings in the watershed, salvage potential was eliminated from almost the entire Trail Creek watershed.

Brown said with Trail Creek, the longer the consultation with USFWS drug out, the more value was being lost.

"The bar that we had to meet in terms of litigation was not so much will we prevail in the end, it was we have to avoid being enjoined," said Brown. "If this gets enjoined and it pushes it out two to three years the value is gone in the burned timber."

Public comments supporting salvage harvest in the wildland urban interface north of Seeley Lake airport added nearly 600 acres to the final decision. While the regional direction was not to enter watersheds affected by retardant misapplication, Hendrickson supported the public's desire to harvest in the area because the units were flat and were already accessible without additional roads. He added minimizing the sedimentation during log haul across Morrell and Trails Creeks were easily mitigated by requiring winter harvest.

However, the other units that were proposed in the northeast corner of the Trail Creek watershed were eliminated because of the additional road construction and the cumulative effects from the retardant misapplication. This was an area that Pyramid identified as a good opportunity for salvage harvest because the area was accessible.

"Where we already have a lot of roads, that means we have already done a lot of harvest [and there is less opportunity]. That usually means we need to build more roads," said Hendrickson.

The Rice Ridge salvage decision allows for the construction of eight miles of temporary road and approximately 15 miles of existing undetermined roads will be reconstructed for temporary use. This was reduced from the 16 miles of temporary road and 16 miles of existing road reconstruction as proposed during the initial scoping.

Sanders said the work with the US Forest Service is a stark contrast to projects with the state. While the Forest Service is managed for multiple use, the state is mandated to manage the land for revenue to support eight different trusts.

"The minute it is burned, it is just going to decrease in value so [the state] logs it right away," said Johnson.

Pyramid got one state salvage sale on the 2017 Lolo Peak fire. They logged it last winter and completed the sale by June.

"The bar is a lot higher for Forest Service," said Rose who added the process is also a lot more cumbersome. "Because it is federal land the people in New York have the same say as people in Seeley Lake."

Pyramid received the 186-acre salvage project on the Liberty fire and three of the four salvage sales on the Rice Ridge fire. The logging has started and will run through the winter. Some of the roads turned designated winter trails Dec. 1 will remain open, some with restrictions but all roads being used will be plowed including parts of the Rice Ridge Road, road to Morrell Falls and Cottonwood Lakes Road.

The Forest Service will be handling all of the closures and restrictions but Sanders recommends people plan on riding snowmobiles on the west side of Seeley Lake, "because the east side is going to be really busy with multiple contractors. Snowmobiles going 60 miles an hour and loaded log truck don't mix at all."

Moving forward

Brown expects the regional approach used for the post fire treatment will become more common and parts of it will be applied to the green timber program. The process provided consistency for the design criteria and how the analysis was completed, something that has been lacking across forests, regions and nationally.

Pyramid feels national policy shifts and public education and engagement is the only thing that will change the way the Forest Service approaches wildland fire management and salvage projects going forward. Any change on federal land, must go through Montana's representative and senators in Washington, D.C. and the president.

"People need to educate themselves and understand the issue," said Rose. "Yes it is good that we have salvage sales but when they look at the scope, could they have done more and at what cost did we get what we got done? "

Pyramid said fuels treatments at a landscape level are needed.

"The only way we are going to get control of these megafires is to do large landscape applications instead of a little piece here and a little piece there," said Johnson. "[Projects that are a couple hundred acres] don't change the fire behavior like large landscape, cross boundary, several thousands of acre treatments."

Johnson said the 1,000 acre fuels treatments on the westside of the Bitterroot National Forest are a good example. The Lolo Peak fire stopped in Sweeney Creek at the Forest Service project boundary from one of Pyramid's timber units.

Another suggestion from Pyramid is to bolster initial attack and keep fires small instead of feeding the fire fighting industry.

"Let's change the thought process. [Let's get the] environmental community to understand that catastrophic fire is bad for the environment - it is not good for the ground long term and it is certainly not good for the atmospheric condition," said Rose.

Rose said that spending the money that would have been spent fighting fire on proactive management using mechanical treatment and prescribed fire, would be better for the atmosphere by reducing smoke emissions. It would be better for the ground because nutrients are still released through lower intensity prescribed fire and foster large, mature trees are more resilient to fire. Finally, treated areas would offer better opportunities to manage fires when they do start.

"If the Forest Service does their homework and does the right thing on the ground for the right reasons they are always going to stand up in court," said Sanders. "They have a purpose and need and when they start carving away at that, then they aren't meeting their original intent."

Rose added, "We feel what happened on Rice Ridge is wrong. First the fire getting to the size that it got to and what has happened since. We wish it were totally different. The long term impact on this community and this company is great."