by Skip Kowalski & Kirk Thompson, Co-chairs, BFC
Recently, there was a LTE in the Star about the forest fire threat on the west side of the valley, lamenting the lack of action to reduce fuels. However, there are efforts being made, as we will describe here. For the past 17 years, the Bitterroot Forest Collaborative (BFC) has served in a voluntary advisory role to the Bitterroot National Forest (BNF). The BFC is composed of valley residents with expertise in business, forestry, wildlife, fire, geology and roads. Members have extensive on-the-ground knowledge of the BNF going back over 40 years. The BFC is always ready to use their knowledge and local perspective to provide recommendations and alternative ideas to assist BNF management.
The BFC was formed in 2007 as part of a project to help improve forest management and reduce lawsuits against BNF timber sales. For many years after the BFC was formed, there were no timber sale lawsuits against the BNF. In recent years, most of the very few lawsuits filed would not have occurred if the BNF had followed the recommendations of the BFC and its members. BFC suggestions would have had only a small reduction in timber sale volumes.
Much of the forest land on the west side of the valley, from Lolo to Darby, up to the 4,000 to 4,500 foot level (and even higher in some places) is private property. Some of the BNF land above the private land has been logged over the past few decades. Much of the land above the logged area is not suitable for timber management or is in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness or recommended Wilderness. More recently, the BNF has been doing prescribed burns to reduce fuels. Wildfires have also reduced fuels.
A great many houses have been built in the forested areas on the lower slopes. These houses can best be protected from wildfire by reducing fuels immediately around the house and by using fire resistant designed materials.
The primary constraint in reducing forest fire fuels is cost, not environmental filing lawsuits. Logging by itself does not reduce primary fuel (slash, brush, limbs etc.) in which a wildfire initiates and spreads rapidly, especially with wind. The green sawlogs do not burn. It is costly to dispose of the fuels present before logging as well as the slash resulting from logging. After logging, nature promptly starts regenerating more fuel, continuing a never-ending cycle requiring costly fuel reduction.
Information on protecting homes from wildfire is available from the DNRC, RC&D, BNF and the BFC.