For over a week I have had firefighters telling me that a longtime plan has been to burn Bass Creek towards the old Kootenai burn for fire management purposes. Alarmed, my husband went to the Lolo incident trailer to discuss these rumors and each time he went he was told that by no means was this the plan. He went for three days straight. Last week I watched as several fires were lit intentionally behind my house on Bass Creek.
Obviously as a home owner, a land lover and recent user of the beautiful forest behind my home, I was devastated. So I have spent an entire day gathering facts that I am sharing with FS Supervisor Julie King, Stevensville District Ranger Tami Sabol and the press.
I spoke with the forest management supervisor at the Stevensville office, a Warren Apple-something. He was a very nice man and expressed his frustration with the inability to get through a proper forest management plan due to “environmentalists” who keep blocking efforts to manage the forest. He did reveal that there has been a long standing plan to burn the area around Bass Creek but it had been thwarted. However, now due to the Lolo fire and under the auspices of managing the Lolo fire, the plan could now go forward, without public process.
No wonder there is little support for the Forest Service’s plan if underhanded means are what they use to manage. I do think we need a management plan. I do think that some logging and burns at the appropriate time of year are needed. I also think that taxpayers and homeowners have a say in how this is enacted and when it is enacted.
There is absolutely no reason to burn the area south of Bass Creek to Kootenai at this time. No homes will perish if the forest there does go due to “natural” causes. None of the home owners wish to have a manmade fire scar the hills at this time.
We are asking the Forest Service to stop the prescribed burns and wait for the proper time to enact their management plans with public approval.
Shura Bugreeff, DVM
Stevensville