National Forest, National Park, and Private Land
August - October of 2001
Review Date: November 7, 2001
Review Sponsored By:
Montanans For Multiple Use
P.O. Box 3050
Columbia Falls, MT 59912
Review Panel Participants:
Lee Downs, Private Land Owner
Arthur (Duke) Hoiland, Private Land Owner
Jim Dupont, Flathead County Sheriff
Gary Mahugh, Consultant & Volunteer Fire Chief
James A. Slack, Heavy Equip. Contractor
Jon A.Dahlberg, DNRC, NW Area Forest Supv.
Ronald Buentemeier, Land Mgr., Stoltze Land & Lumber.
Tom Weaver, Fishery Biologist, MFW&P
Jeff Forbes, Chief of Staff, U.S. Senator Max Baucus
Alan Mikkelsen, Resource Staff, Congressman Rehberg
Julie Altumus, Field Repr., U.S. Senator Conrad Burns
Dale Williams, Chrm., Flathead County Commissioner
Clarice Ryan, Organizational & Educational Liaison
Fred Hodgeboom, Forestry Consultant, Tree Farmer
& USFS planner, retired
Written by:
Chuck Samuelson, USFS retired, Œ85
for Montanans For Multiple Use
from review notes, personal inservice experience,
with history and commentary
MOOSE FIRE REVIEW
Executive Statement
A critique meeting was called by Montanans for Multiple Use on November
7 to address the causes, problems, fire management procedures and proposed
solutions in relation to the "Moose fire" which occurred in
Northwest Montana during August & September of 2001. A panel of 16
specialists, community leaders, elected officials and participants in this
fire were called together to participate on panel discussions addressing
these issues. The problems of U.S. forest mismanagement, overgrowth, fuel
build-up, disease and bug-infestation were noted originating in federal
lands and ultimately causing problems for adjoining forests. The
complexity of fire management became apparent due to federal, state,
county and private lands all being involved leaving in question the power
of authority and command as well as the qualifications necessary to do the
job. Furthermore, and most significant, in observing federal command
performance and procedures, an obvious "let burn" objective was
in place.
Exorbitant costs of fire-fighting, loss of natural resources and
revenues were identified. On-going post-fire problems are anticipated
concerning water-shed, mud-slides, water pollution and restoration costs.
Extensive deterioration in value of salvage timber and forest restoration
is almost assured due to federal procedures and red tape lasting a year or
more, while state sales and forest treatment are already underway.
As details came to light the origin of problems consistently reflected
back to the impact of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and its
strangle-hold on federal policy-making. The ESA is determining the
objectives and procedures for USFS management of the forests, their level
of multiple use and the degree of access by the American public. The ESA
also initiates rules and regulations through various channels concerning
state and private lands. The ESA grants the USFWS and National Marine
Fisheries Service unlimited authority to write management standards which
apply to all Federal lands and Agencies. The cumulative effect of all
these standards results in no management of Federal lands. As a result,
Federal Forests have grown so thick they they pose the worst fire hazard
ever. Ironically a catastrophic fire of this magnitude and intensity
ultimately destroys in a dramatically destructive manner, now and for
decades to come, the very endangered species and their habitats that the
act was designed to protect, as well as threatening neighboring lives and
property. This also destroys the value of these forests originally set
aside for use and enjoyment of the citizens who own them and are best
qualified to protect and preserve them for the betterment of humans, the
wildlife and the environment.
The meeting concluded with a request to the congressional
representatives present as well as the county commissioner to recommend
solutions for anticipated, on-going forest fire problems here in Montana
and throughout the country. Solutions included revisions to ESA for
removal of unilateral authority for US wildlife and fish agencies to issue
Biological Opinions which have the force of law. Revise the Equal Access
to Justice Act to remove no risk appeal and litigation rights of non-profit
corporations. Restore NEPA categorical exclusion authority. Exempt fire
salvage from appeals and litigation. Provide incentives for the Forest
Service to implement management practices.
It was felt that the analysis and accountability to the tax-paying
public provided by this public review has great merit and is a recommended
post-fire strategy.
Background:
The Moose Fire review took place on Nov. 7, 2001, and was sponsored and
organized by Montanans For Multiple Use. The primary purpose was to review
events and actions on the fire for the benefit of the public and
representatives of agencies involved, private citizens, and elected
officials from the county, state, and federal levels who were involved or
deserve to learn of some of events taking place on the Moose Fire. It was
meant to be a constructive review. The Moose Fire destroyed watersheds,
wildlife and wildlife habitat including almost as much timber as has ever
been harvested on National Forest Lands in the North Fork Flathead River.
The fire ran up over 20 million dollars in suppression and rehabilitation
cost. This is a large detriment to the forested mountainous lands, the
national and local economy and a direct cost and loss to the citizen
taxpayer.
In the politics of today, it seems that responsibility and
accountability by federal government agencies has little meaning and bears
no consequences to anyone responsible and involved. No one is responsible
or assumes responsibility. If public pressure is too strong, a defense is
established. Investigative reviews are not taken or if taken are dragged
out endlessly so that they become meaningless through the protracted
process. Such actions proliferate and continue on and on to the detriment
of the nation, citizen taxpayer, and the government agencies themselves.
Problems are not solved, only compounded.
The Moose Fire was reported as discovered on August 14, 2001 and burned
into October 2001. The fire burned approximately 71,000 acres with 96
miles of fire perimeter. Area burned is; National Forest (37,000 acres),
National Park (24,000 acres), State of Montana’s Coal Cr. Forest (6,500
acres), and private land (941 acres). The fire’s base camp, located on
the outskirts of Columbia Falls, MT, was a comfortable community within
itself with all the amenities. Burned area rehabilitation is being
conducted and will require several years of continued work. Rehab costs
will continue to be incurred for an unknown time adding to the $20 million
cost. Costs are borne by the U.S. taxpayers.
The Forest Service no longer fights fire around the clock. The time
clock hours were 0700 hours to 1900 hours, or a 12 hour day. This day
shift only regime is inefficient. It makes the whole fire suppression
effort exceedingly costly beyond common sense. It also adds to the size of
the burned area. Never before in the history of the U.S. Forest Service
has wildland fire fighting been a 0700 to 1900 job. The Forest Service is
terrified of risk even though there will always be risk to wild land
firefighters. The risk is actually greater during the daytime burning
period. The Forest Service should analyze fatalities/million man hours,
day vs. night, but they don’t seem to use facts to support their
decisions these days.
Some hazard trees along roads within the fire area have been cut and
sold for saw timber. Any further timber salvage and removal will be
subjected to about one year of study, plan writing, contract preparation,
inevitable appeals and lawsuits which could exceed far more than a year of
time. Burned timber requires removal before the next summers dry season to
maintain a marketable value. The tactic to thwart and stall the sale of
salvageable saw timber is the usual goal of the "zero cut"
environmental organizations. Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars
are wasted in planning so we are assured of the no action alternative
effects. The environmental conflict industry can claim more deficit sales
by the U.S. Forest Service.
The State of Montana’s Dept. of Natural Resources Lands burned in the
Bitterroot Fires of the summer of 2000 were acted upon immediately.
Salvage timber sales were prepared, sold, and the burned timber was
removed in the winter following the burn thus minimizing loss of value and
maximizing a return to State School Trust Funds.
An inservice fire review of the Moose Fire by the federal and state
government agencies has not been held and there is apparently none planned
or announced. This suggests that the U.S. Forest Service and the National
Park Service do not wish to address the issue which could enable them to
perform more efficiently in future fire incidents. It is absolutely
inconceivable that a critique and thorough review would not be conducted
for the agencies own benefit.
The Review:
The review consisted of three (3) tables of participants.
The first table consisted of two private land owners who had property
in the direct path of the fire, the Flathead County Sheriff, who has
ultimate responsibility for the protection of private property and
citizens within the County, the Incident Commander for County Volunteer
Fire Depts. who were organized to assist in protection of private land and
structures and under control of the County Sheriff and County Emergency
Services, and a local heavy equipment contractor who was hired by the
Forest Service for the primary purpose of building fireline, opening
closed roads or other work requiring heavy mechanized equipment for
suppression purposes.
One of the private landowners had two separate properties involved in
the fire. His buildings were saved by the County Volunteer Firefighters.
This landowner is basically a life long resident of the North Fork, knows
the North Fork and the lands intimately and also knows wildland fire from
long experience. He operates his own tree farm, or now what is left of it.
The two private landowners are convinced that the Moose Fire was a
"let burn fire" but was not openly declared by the Forest
Service. He stated that there was "too much evidence of a fire that
was being allowed to burn". They were also convinced that had an
effort been made, the fire could have and should have been stopped within
a week of the start on Aug. 14th.
Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont spoke next and explained his role
and the County role in the Moose Fire with the primary duty of providing
safety and protection for private property and human life. In that role,
Flathead County organized a fire fighting force of Flathead Valley
Volunteer Firefighters, fire engines and related equipment. The Volunteers
were under the immediate direction of an Incident Commander (fire boss or
chief). This position was held by Gary Mahugh, Chief of the Creston, MT,
Volunteer Fire Dept.. This force had other Deputy’s and the head of
Emergency Services all working as a team for support of property and human
safety purposes.
The County team fireproofed numerous private structures and one Forest
Service bridge on the Coal Creek Road which was overrun by the wildfire
and was consequently saved. Volunteers built and cleared fireline around
structures and other defensible spaces, performed fire hose lays and
suppression work. Also fireproofing numerous individual structures. Their
work continued for weeks with virtually no break.
Volunteer Incident Commander Mahugh elaborated on Sheriff Dupont’s
testimony.
Sheriff Dupont explained that the U.S. Forest Service had offered to
take command and control of the Volunteer forces and their equipment on
the Moose Fire. This proposal was adamantly refused by the Sheriff and
also with adamant concurrence of the Flathead County Commissioners.
For clarification, individual County Fire District’s can supply
manpower and equipment to operate off of their respective Fire Districts
but have a standing responsibility to be able to still provide protection
to their home district and its taxpayers who finance each individual fire
district. Flathead County Fire Districts have had mutual aid agreements
among all fire districts for many years.
Sheriff Dupont rightfully refused to delegate the County’s strike
team resources to the command and control of the federal fire incident
commander. This apparently "ruffled some feathers of the federal
officials". Sheriff Dupont also stated, "the fire cost $20
million dollars and what do we have but a lot of burned forest".
Flathead County has incurred about $300,000 through their actions to
protect life and property as a result of the Moose Fire.
Volunteer Incident Commander Mahugh said local firefighters, along with
some landowners are "the only reason that some of those structures
are up there", referring to the structures of private land owners.
Mahugh also stated that when the first homes were threatened, the Moose
Fire Incident Commander ordered the county forces to evacuate. "We
refused to leave and continued operations". Federal forces did leave
the area.
The next first table panel member is a local native of long standing. A
timber and construction industry operator who had crawler tractor dozers
and excavator type equipment along with two other loggers who each had
contracted to the Forest Service for the purpose of constructing fireline
and the clearing and removal of timber in fireline construction. His
comment was that a lot of time was spent waiting for instructions and that
members of a federal southeastern U.S. fire overhead team had told him
that they had been restricted in their ability to use heavy equipment to
construct fireline. The contractor’s were not allowed to put their
equipment to work on the line even when the fire was only 20 to 150 acres
and could have been contained with dozer lines. This statement supports
the private landowners statement that they saw "too much evidence of
a fire that was being allowed to burn".
The second panel table consisted of two Flathead Forest officials who
gave a quick rundown of the Moose Fire and ongoing rehabilitation work in
the Moose Fire area. They also spent time explaining actions during the
fire and attempting to refute some of the statements of other panel
members giving testimony. The Forest Service officials gave no details of
suppression actions prior to the District turning the management of the
Moose Fire over to the Werner Peak Fire Team.
Others at the table were the State of Montana Forest Supervisor for the
Northwest Montana Forests belonging to the State. As previously stated,
the State of Montana lost 6,500 acres of their Coal Creek State Forest to
the Moose Fire. This is roughly one half of the State Unit of School Trust
Lands in the North Fork.
The State Supervisor stated that before the smoke cleared that his team
was surveying the area and preparing to put together an environmental
analysis. Their plans are to prepare sales of the areas totally destroyed
and to have the sales hopefully sold and logged this first winter and
working over the snow to lessen impacts on the soils. Following that the
intentions are to survey the areas that have some trees that may survive
in order to leave the live trees and harvest those trees that are going to
die or have obviously been killed by the fire. The State is also
performing fire area rehabilitation.
The next panel member at the second table was a fisheries biologist
from the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks. His team was doing stream
surveys in the burned area before the smoke settled. He stated there were
fish losses in the fire area but the streams have sufficient "seed
stock" to eventually recover. Sediment is and will be a problem,
especially in spring runoff. Many miles of riparian areas were completely
burned off. This will add to sediment in runoff and has removed important
shade to the streams.
From a recent news article the redd counts (nests) for the threatened
bull trout has been taken and remains stable. The exception is of upper
Coal Creek above the burned area where there are no redds. This has been
attributed to sediment.
A question and answer period was afforded to the audience who submitted
written questions on cards.
The last panel, the solutions panel, at the third table included three
representatives of the U.S. Congressional delegation. A retired U.S.
Forest Service Forester who was one of the writers of the current l986
Flathead National Forest Plan which is suppose to be in effect. A former
business person with an energy background. And Flathead County
Commissioner Dale Williams.
Commissioner Williams points were: 1. Revise the Endangered Species
Act. Place human and economic elements on par with plants and animals. 2.
De-emphasize the roles of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the
National Marine Fisheries Service under the Endangered Species Act. 3.
Provide a salvage exclusionary rider for salvage of burned area timber and
timber killed by insects and disease. 4. Laws are needed to prevent
establishing de-facto wilderness areas without public or congressional
scrutiny. 5. Require a bond for an appeal of any Forest Service proposed
project. A bond in value to the project value.
Problems:
1. Slow initial attack response and an apparent let burn attitude of
responsible agencies.
2. Insects were active and moving into burned area during and following
fire.
3. Forest Service underestimated fires potential even though their own
maps show high hazard fuels.
4. Too many changes in fire overhead and supervisory command team.
5. Conflicts between federal and local command personnel.
6. Did not adequately anchor the fires burned areas with firelines.
7. No internal review of fire tactics and fire costs.
8. Loss of habitat and wildlife including ESA listed species to fire
Solutions:
1. Keep burn areas in an emergency status for salvage of burned trees
and for land rehabilitation work.
2. Reinstate the categorical exclusion section of the National
Environmental Policy Act.
3. Consider removal of unburned fire fuels for use as biomass for power
generation when facilities are available.
4. Policy changes (national) need to come from the U.S. Congress. May
take presidents executive orders.
5. Appeals to National Forest projects should require bonds equal to a
projected value of the project appealed.
6. Initial attack of wildland fires needs more priority and
concentrated efforts and consideration.
7. Fuels reduction in all forest areas and in burned over areas.
8. More utilization of local forest fire suppression talents.
9. Burned trees - old growth trees burned should not be considered old
growth. Most should be considered for salvage.
10. Automatic review for larger fires, fire situation, fiscal review
and protocol reviews.
11. Revise the Endangered Species Act to remove authority of the USFWS
and NMFS to issue "biological opinions" with no environmental,
economic or social analysis, no public or peer review, and no
accountability for effects of implementation.
12. Revise Equal Access to Justice Law to introduce some accountability
to non-profit corporations who now abuse their "low to no cost, no
risk" status to file endless appeals and lawsuits. These corporations
are big business and they should have to post bonds to delay expensive
Federal projects, and they should have to pay the public costs when they
can’t prove up frivolous claims in court.
Conclusions:
The U.S. Forest Service no longer has the capability to manage the
National Forests and especially to provide sufficient experienced and
qualified supervisory fire overhead positions on a local basis to
adequately control wildfires once a fire escapes initial attack. Esprit de
corps and a "can do" attitude in any form within the service no
longer exists.
The Flathead National Forest and the U.S. Forest Service has a history
of nearly 100 years of wildland fire fighting and in the dirt forest
management. During that period much experience has been gained that
resulted in strong policy related to wildland firefighting and suppression
action with strong emphasis towards personal safety. For many years the
primary goal was to attack fires while they were small and keep them small
or "fight fire aggressively but provide for safety first". This
historical reservoir of experience is now being underused or ignored.
In today’s U.S. Forest Service, the District Rangers are
predominately not professional foresters or even experienced in forestry
or forest management. They have wildlife, recreation, or some other
unknown degree.
Employees are no longer required to have or gain fire experience or
qualifications to assist in fireline activities. The experienced and
qualified firefighters are greying and retiring.
Esprit de corps in the service, which existed in the past among the
fire suppression crews of the adjoining and various Ranger Districts, may
now only exist in organized fire crews. It was a building block of strong
organizations and those of past fire crews always took pride in going to
someone else’s fire and performing with pride.
Since about 1985, the U.S. Forest Service has changed the course of the
service from active forest management to a passive do little or nothing
agency.
The change of course has been brought about by continuous litigation
resulting from the Endangered Species Act. The ESA is enforced by the
Dept. of Interior, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has control and
approves all project actions of the Forest Service.
