So far this year about 800,000 acres, or 1,250 square miles, of Montana have burned. About 47% of that burn is on BLM Land. About 25% of that burn, or some 312 plus square miles, or 200,000 acres, is on USFS Land. Evidently it’s costing about $1,000.00 an acre to deal with actively burning forests in Montana. Or $640,000 per square mile. 640 acres per square mile.
The Lolo Peak Fire had burned about 70 square miles as of 9/3, and reportedly has cost over $40 million to manage, control and suppress. One life lost, two homes destroyed.
What a darn tragedy. Old timers were right. To be realistic you best assume current USFS efforts to fight community-threatening forest fire are too late and too expensive.
And what’s the shape of fire events yet to come?
Looking forward a few months, it’s only realistic to expect lots of windstorms. And lightning strikes.
There’s more active forest fire acreage burning in the Sapphires than in the Lolo Peak Fire.
After Roaring Lion Fire, it’s realistic that forest fires can come fast and furious down a canyon in the Bitterroots, pushed by an incoming air mass hundreds of miles long.
It’s realistic to plan that the Lolo Peak Fire will burn until winter snowfall.
It’s realistic to ask what did we get from the 8/28/17 fly in of two Cabinet Officers along with Senator Daines, and Representative Gianforte, to be briefed and to observe the 31% contained, ongoing Lolo Peak Fire.
It’s realistic that we would have some assurance from DOA-USFS Chief “Sonny” Perdue that there is adequate contingency to not suppress, but extinguish, local 2017 lightning strikes when USFS nightly infrared images and weather predictions suggest a probable fire run through high value recreation land and private land.
Local forests and people have suffered enough. With Type 1 fire attack hot shots stationed in Darby, also in Hamilton, there should be some kind of regional authority to attack local fires that could blow up and threaten civilization. With Type 1 fire attack rapellers and jump teams stationed nearby, were they used on the Lolo Peak Fire, and would they be put to work on local civilization-threatening, lightning-caused fire outbreaks until snowfall?
It’s realistic to want to know how well prepared the USFS was for this local fire season.
The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, said fall 2017 is “expected to exhibit overall warmer and drier than average conditions for the Western states and Alaska.”
A person has to do more than wonder how well our local USFS forests were, or were not, monitored/modeled for humidity and fuel moisture content. InciWeb puts the Lolo Peak Fire zone at a minimum humidity of 13%.
A person might well ask USFS what the temperatures are up high during these valley inversions, where the thermal column is inverted, and where it’s warmer and dryer halfway up the mountains than along valley bottomland.
Knowing agency prediction, also dry forest conditions, did USFS consider if initial Lolo Peak Fire attack crews could and should have been making a fire break at the ridgeline above the steep slope to lightning struck trees?
We need to know if there could have been a more effective attack on the lightning-caused Lolo Peak Fire.
We need to know if and when the fire was unstoppable with available resources.
That’s a question you might ask of Secretary of Agriculture “Sonny” Perdue who recently flew to Montana, the state with then the largest amount of grassland fire, and the largest amount of forest fire acreage. He flew in to observe and be briefed about the Lolo Peak Fire, according to the press release.
He flew in with a delegation, DOI Secretary Ryan Zinke and 2/3 of Montana’s Congressmen, Senator Steve Daines and Representative Greg Gianforte.
Media outside and inside Montana gave Secretary Perdue opportunity to say something significant about USFS understanding, plans and policy towards the Lolo Peak Fire and ongoing forest fires here in USFS Region 1.
What did Secretary Perdue say and do here in Montana with 4,000 firefighters and 125 aircraft fighting 23 major fires, and other fires here in Montana, where our forests are one of Montana’s treasures?
Secretary Perdue said he and Ryan Zinke had to figure out how forest management could stop future wildfire.
The online only Missoula Current broke the story. That’s a good source of journalism about the gist of local forest fire news.
Our forests are burning while some politicians are fiddling with new top down forest management hierarchy, plans and policy!
How about reminding politicians about realities.
Get real. There’s megatons of newly burned timber. Lots of burned tree trunks can be milled in the next few years. How about putting us to work at milling burned USFS trees?
Be realistic. Build a semi-portable mill and kiln, maybe near Darby. Fine tune and locate the mill near USFS identified trees in our local forests, with good reliable stream flow and workable roads.
Be realistic, Ravalli. Time for builders, contractors, merchants and lumber brokers to work with USFS on feasibility of fixed or semi locatable mill and kiln, producing branded-in-the-Bitterroot lumber and wood products. Supply the operation as much as possible from USFS fuels reduction projects here in the Bitterroot.
Be realistic. Why did our Ag Secretary remain silent and let Secretary Zinke, Senator Daines and Representative Gianforte get briefed and make comments for the public?
They do not speak for USFS.
DOI-BLM Secretary Zinke spoke about fuels reduction through forest management and prescribed burns.
Representative Gianforte and Senator Daines spoke about how mismanaged forests have to be managed or mismanaged forests will manage us.
Search around for any evidence that they stood up for Montana and are asking the USFS about forest fire policy, plans and contingencies until comes winter snow.
Search around for how much Zinke, Daines and Gianforte had to say about shortage of money in the Montana budget, and no money left in the Montana budget for suppression of this year’s forest fires.
Search around. Did they question if the Lolo Peak Fire was initially attacked too late?
Search. Did they say anything like, if we don’t manage our climate, our climate will manage us?
What we got is what we got.
Nil from Secretary of DOA-USFS.
Secretary of DOI, and our Representative and our Junior Senator, told us to trust them regarding forest management plans as part of new upcoming legislation.
That might be OK if they had trusted us to tell them about our experiences with and understandings of, the Lolo Peak Fire.
What was the purpose of the delegation flying into Missoula? Maybe to promote forest management legislation that might in part cut more trees into sawlogs to truck to distant Montana mills buying sawlogs also from BC. Distant mills making lumber for a sliding housing market, while Canada still dumps lumber exports into Montana, and will dump until 11/4/17, no thanks to recent extension of softwoods tariff agreement between Canada and the USA.
While federal politicians wrangle with re-structuring bureacracy, and draft legislation spelling out proposed USFS forest management, here’s some issues and concerns for people to tell politicians to consider.
Here in the Bitterroot Valley and Lolo Valley, there’s about a thousand homes that had to be evacuated. People up Highway 12 were for a while not able to go to work because of highway closings.
How many dollars has the Lolo Peak Fire cost local people? Maybe a fourth of the government cost to fight the fire.
How many dollars are needed to re-seed and replant to help nature recover from the Lolo Peak Fire? And mitigate against flood damages?
Tens of thousands of people in Montana suffer the consequences of a month of smoky air. Residents around heavily timbered Seeley Lake have struggled for a month with smoky air containing ten times the number of fines and ultra fines as Missoula air.
Possibly ultra fine smoky particulates can get into our blood.
There’s realistic concern about what would happen if a mass of air from far far north makes for a few days of winds through the Lolo Peak Fire. There’s realistic concern that a fire part way up one of the many Bitterroot canyons would be wind-forced east toward private property, residences, workplaces and community places, plus realistic concern that USFS fire management is able to get big fast when annual fall lightning strikes come to nearby mountains.
In conclusion, what did we hear from the flown-in delegation of our four political officials about information they learned from local USFS briefings?
From what I’ve gathered about all we heard was official support for upcoming forest management legislation to be proposed by the dominant political party.
That definitely is not realistic. Matter of fact, it was kinda rude.
Have a heart, DC politicians and lobbyists.
Here in the mid valley we are watching the smoke from the west side of the Lolo Peak Fire come closer most every day. Many days smoke blow-ups along the western horizon are another half a hand width more to the south.
We had a late wet spring and a short summer. Not much sunshine throught smoke for over a month. Not much chance for kids to play outside.
Telling us to look forward to partisan lobbied legislation to re-manage the forest sounds to me much worse than a bad joke.
To fly in and blame courts and “frivolous” lawsuits when 1,250 square miles of Montana are in active fire, sounds like foolishly inappropriate talking points.
Sounds to me like no care. No try. Sounds narrow minded purposeful. Sounds like promo to promote upcoming party legislation. Sounds like trust the dominant political party to improve health care, reduce taxes on the 1% that own stock and bonds, and determine USFS forest management.
Trust Congress to foolishly subsidize and incentivise corporations which dump CO2 and methane into the air around us.
No wonder Congress has an approval rating way below President Trump’s approval rating.
Seems like there’s mixed messages from some politicians. Something like: America is not suffering from global warming but because American forests are getting warmer and burning, Congress should get into “forest management.”
Be realistic. Check out the forward monthly temperature, also precip, simple colored maps at online NOAA. Scroll down to the blue background; under Forecast, select “Climatic Outlook.”
Here’s some thought experiments. What might happen if four qualified members of the opposing political party were flown in at USFS-BLM expense and briefed on local fires on condition they share their observations and findings with USFS-BLM and us people?
But maybe that’s not fair? But how fair is it that a bigly changed climate has forced half of Montana into drought conditions? How fair is that people and critters and fish and private property around the Lolo Peak Fire are forced to suffer?
Perhaps not taxpayers but a PAC should have paid for travel expenses so that four officials would jointly ignore local realities and make partisan comments supporting upcoming proposed legislation dealing with USA forest management.
With the surprising new wild card that Secretary Zinke and USA DOI will help determine USA forest management.
Certainly the dominant political party has by now reconsidered proposed legislation that would have cut forest fire fighting and forest fire prevention costs by some $350 million.
Bob Williams
Stevensville