Pristine or Protected?

Up here in Montana, firefighters are mopping up the 67,000 acre Moose Fire.

The fire originated on Forest Service-managed public lands in the 285,000-acre Glacier View Ranger District of the Flathead National Forest, taking a spectacular, scary month to chew through 36,000 acres of National Forest, plus 24,000 acres of Glacier National Park, 900 acres of private land and 6,500 acres of state forest land. It was terrible to behold.

Once the fire is out, the Park lands will be left to nature, as they should, while the private and state lands are expected to be quickly salvaged and prepared for regrowth. But nobody expects the timber burned on the Forest Service land to be recovered for use.

Over fifty years ending in 1996, 1.02 billion board feet were harvested from the Glacier View district. Environmentalists claim that about a quarter of the district, 76,000 acres, have been harvested. Dividing the total harvest into the acreage results in a rough average yield of 13545 board feet per acre. Multiplying that average into the 36,000-acre Forest Service burn gives us an estimate of around 487.6 million board feet lost in the fire, or 25 years worth at historic harvest levels.

At 13,000 board feet per railroad car, that’s 37,462 cars, or a train 461 miles long.

While the fire probably consumed some of that outright, the rest is still theoretically salvageable.

But it won’t be. First, there aren’t enough loggers or local sawmills left to handle that timber before it loses market value -- which, at a rock-bottom price of $125 per thousand feet, is $61 million. And even if there were, professional environmentalists will sue to prevent it.

See, the entire Glacier View district is coveted by environmentalists for eventual designation as "Flathead National Park and Preserve." (go to HR 488 NREPA)   In order to protect that legislation, Green lawyers have sued to list endangered species such as the bull trout and Canada lynx, sued to amend forest plans prohibiting harvest in grizzly country, sued to tear out roads; in short, sued the Forest Service into complete paralysis. There hasn’t been a log cut on the Glacier View, not a stick, since 1996.

Funny thing is, for all this litigated "environmental protection," and despite $10.8 million in firefighting expense, the Moose ran wild for miles, burning three important bull trout drainages completely across. Furthermore, thousands upon thousands of small prey such as voles were incinerated, which in turn diminished the utility of the habitat for lynx and marten. How is that protection?

Foresters have been warning for years that fuel continuity on millions of Forest Service acres nationwide, not just Glacier View, is such that wildfires cannot be controlled at all once they get the bit in their teeth -- as the Moose Fire proved.

These fuels must be broken up somehow, but breaking them up only through the use of prescribed fire is simply too risky, as proven by the Los Alamos fiasco. Mechanical treatment -- or in plain English, commercial logging -- is mandatory.

On Glacier View, the burned habitat lost in the Moose makes protecting and managing the remaining areas -- upon which the fuels are just as heavy and just as continuous -- even more critical. Failure to do so will leave at-risk species -- the very creatures Greens say they are "saving" -- even more at risk.

It’s senseless and stupid -- yet I’ll bet my favorite rifle that when the Forest Service proposes its sale, environmentalist lawyers will be ready with mile-high stacks of appeals -- all on tree-free paper, of course -- all in the name of "protection."

I’m sorry, but "pristine" forests that can disappear with the next lightning strike are not protected at all. Given the choice, I’d accept a less-than-pristine forest that functions effectively and is at least partially protected against disaster by active forest management.

No matter how "pristine" and functional the remaining forests in the Glacier View may be, the areas hit by the Moose Fire are neither -- they are dead. The other 250,000 acres remain fully ripe for another holocaust.

What will we do after we’ve wasted millions more in fire money, more millions worth of timber, and destroyed who knows how many thousands more acres of priceless habitat?

Designate a new national park, of course.

Montana writer Dave Skinner did not enjoy watching part of the "Crown of the Continent" melt into slag.

This appeared on the Flathead Forest web site Question and Answer page.

What will the Flathead National Forest do with the burned area within the Moose Fire once the fire is controlled or out?

Even before the fire is out, we’ve started work to complete a survey of the burned area and post-fire assessment. The survey and assessment set the stage for what actions are needed for post-fire restoration and rehabilitation. The survey and post-fire assessment will include:   

1)      The effects of the fire on soil, water, wildlife, vegetation, recreation and other resources.

2)      Immediate management actions to minimize any potential damage to water quality.

3)      Management actions to improve the long-term conditions of the vegetation and water quality of the area.

The Moose Fire assessment will certainly discuss opportunities for any post fire salvage of burned timber. 

Apparently salvage is NOT one of FS priorities or it comes so far down on the list that it is mentioned only as a possibility.

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