Gallatin research shows clearcuts burn, too

By the Associated Press

PARADISE VALLEY - It's early in this summer's fire season, and the same debate rages.

Timber companies say they could help reduce the incidence of fire if they were allowed to do more logging, while environmental groups say such "fuel reduction" plans are thin disguises for environmentally irresponsible logging.

A new analysis and mapping of last year's fires in the Gallatin National Forest shows logged land, clearcuts and thick timber all were susceptible to forest fires.

"With these wind-blown fires, in extremely dry conditions, not much is going to stop them," said Tim Hancock, who runs the timber program for the Gallatin and has served as an incident commander on forest fires.

The analysis found the Purdy fire, which scorched 5,000 acres last September and October just south of Bozeman, burned on land that has been logged sporadically for decades.

Of the total, 1,400 acres of that fire was private land or state land. Another 1,900 acres was land that until recently belonged to Plum Creek Timber Co. or Big Sky Lumber Co., outfits that logged heavily and often. The Forest Service logged and built roads on much of the rest of it.

It all burned: Sometimes, when the fire hit an old clearcut, it slowed down. But in at least one place, logging wastes created the hottest flames.

A similar pattern occurred on the 27,000-acre Fridley fire, which started with a lightning strike on private land near Emigrant.

There, 9,600 acres of private or formerly private land burned. Much of that land had been extensively logged, as had some sections of national forest land. Almost all of that fire burned at "high intensity," which means at least 75 percent of the trees and other plants burned and died.

"It played no favorites," Hancock said of the Fridley fire. "It made no difference whether it was logged, or logged and regenerated, or a native stand. It burned it all."

While more than half of that fire was in a wilderness study area, where there is no logging or roadbuilding, the flames got there only after they marched through miles of private and public land managed for timber production and heavily roaded.

Environmentalists, land managers and politicians are starting to agree that, in some areas, appropriate thinning can reduce fire intensity, especially in Douglas fir forests at lower elevations.

Reducing fire risk in other areas is still debated.

Controlled burns sometimes escape, logging is of questionable value and always controversial, and reducing the key fuels - the small trees of little commercial value - is expensive and labor intensive.

And if the Forest Service estimate of 70 million at-risk acres is accurate, and if the government can work on 1.5 million acres a year - an elusive target so far - it will take decades to get the job done.

By then, it will be time to start over.

Though Congress has dedicated billions of dollars to firefighting, fire rehabilitation ($72 million in Montana this year) and fire planning, the flames keep burning and the fingers keep pointing.