State of timber: Forests' future full of changes, challenges

By PERRY BACKUS of the Missoulian

Tom Robak knew he'd struck a public chord that day he opened up his post office box.

A week hadn't yet passed since Robak and others had hosted a meeting in Hamilton earlier this month that drew close to 650 people on a sunny Sunday afternoon. The crowd had come to learn about the new group - Big Sky Coalition: Environmentalists with Common Sense - that planned to challenge forest management policies it believed were causing catastrophic wildfires.

When Robak turned the key, he was shocked to see his box stuffed full of letters supporting the coalition. The envelopes contained almost $3,500 in donations.

“We had no idea when we started if this was something that people would be interested in,” Robak said. “Now we know there are people out there who want to see something different happening on forest lands.”

Link to full article in the Missoulian.

Congress fiddles while states burn: Senator Rick Laible

Senator Rick Laible knows what's going on in our National Forests. He also knows what's missing in Congress, namely any kind of action to reduce fuels in the forest. He's asking for people who support the Big Sky Coalition agenda to become part of the vocal majority and write a letter to Congress. (Make that boxes of letters!)

Link to guest editorial in Ravalli Republic.

The Need for Healthier Forests: Obvious, isn't it?

Photos: 1895 Bitterroot N.F., 1980 pic shows infill of trees; 2000 fire took all of them. (House moved prior to fire.)
1895	1980	2000

Under normal conditions of forest and rangeland health, fires play a vital role in removing excess fuels and maintaining normal plant composition and density. These fires tend to burn at ground level, generating low temperatures and moving relatively slowly. When burning through forested areas, these fires remove underbrush and dead growth while healthy, mature trees survive. Without active management of forests and rangelands, large, expensive, and damaging wildfires will occur more frequently, causing greater damage to people, property, and ecosystems. Intelligent active land management that minimizes the risk of severe fires is needed to protect forest and rangeland ecosystems.

About 190 million acres of federal forests and rangelands in the lower 48 states face high risks of catastrophic fire due to deteriorating ecosystem health and drought. For instance, many ponderosa pine forests are 15 times more dense than they were a century ago. Where 25 to 35 trees once grew on each acre of forest, now more than 500 trees are crowded together in unhealthy conditions. Drought conditions coupled with years of fuel buildup from fire suppression and reduced thinning make these lands vulnerable to intense and environmentally destructive fires.

This fire season is among the worst in modern history.

• More than 5.9 million acres have burned so far this year, 500,000 acres more than the previous record-setting 2000 fire season, and more than double the acreage of the 10-year average. Hundreds of millions of trees were destroyed by these fires. Major fires burned in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

• Fires are burning with greater speed and intensity than ever before. For example, the 468,000-acre Rodeo Fire in Arizona grew from 800 acres to 46,000 acres in just one day, destroying homes and forests owned by the White Mountain Apache Tribe. The 137,000-acre Hayman Fire was five times bigger than the previous largest fire in Colorado's modern history, and forced evacuations in over 80 communities. The 471,000-acre Biscuit Fire is the largest fire in Oregon's modern history, threatening over 4,000 homes. The 147,000-acre McNally Fire threatened sequoias along the Trail of 100 Giants in California.

Catastrophic wildfires harm people, property, and the environment.

Harm to People and Local Communities

• Firefighters Are At Risk: Large, severe wildfires create unsafe conditions for both firefighters and the public. Twenty wildland firefighters have been killed this year. Over the last ten years, 189 wildland firefighters have been killed, and hundreds have been injured. A national survey revealed that nearly 83 percent of all firefighters identified "fuels reduction" as the single most important factor for improving their margin of safety on wildfires (Wildland Firefighter Safety Awareness Study, Tri-Data, 1996).

• Increased Air Pollution: Smoke from wildfires can significantly affect air quality in neighboring cities and towns. Several Colorado communities experienced significantly impaired air quality caused by fires for several weeks this summer; Denver experienced the highest level of fine particulates ever recorded in the state. The 1999 Big Bar Fire Complex in northern California caused violations of federal and state health-based air quality standards for 22 days, and closed schools in two counties for several days.

• Fires Force Thousands to Evacuate: Tens of thousands of people from 200 communities were forced to flee wildfires this summer. In Colorado alone, more than 77,000 residents were evacuated from their homes for periods of a few days to several weeks and the resulting damage and loss of property cost the insurance industry more than $80 million.

• Property Damage: This year more than 2,300 homes and structures were destroyed by wildfire, causing millions of dollars in damage.

Disruption to Local Economies

Large, catastrophic fires threaten economic sustainability of communities dependent on wildlands and natural resources. Tourism and recreational interests (such as outfitters, guides, camping and fishing), the wood products industry, ranching, and the service industries that support them are all affected by the loss of resources to wildfires. Destroyed forests and damaged watersheds impose a variety of economic costs to communities.

• Reduced Tourism: In July, smoke from the Big Elk Fire reduced tourism in Rocky Mountain National Park, depressing the local economy. In Sedona, Arizona, occupancy rates and revenues at one popular resort hotel fell to less than half of normal mid-summer rates.
  

• Damage to Municipal Watersheds: Severe wildfires degrade water quality, decrease storage capacity, and jeopardize the physical structure of municipal watersheds. For instance, the 1996 Buffalo Creek Fire burned 12,000 acres in Colorado's South Platte River drainage, forcing the Denver Water Board to spend more than $20 million to address sediment problems caused by erosion into one of Denver's primary municipal water supply reservoirs.

Environmental Damage

Severe wildfires can damage soils, water quality and quantity, fisheries, plant communities, wildlife habitat, and endanger species. Damage to watersheds and loss of resources may have cascading effects outside of the burned areas. For example, fisheries can be severely impacted by sedimentation and siltation following fires. Rehabilitation can reduce but cannot eliminate these impacts.

• Damaged Fisheries: Critical trout fisheries throughout the West and salmon and steelhead fisheries in the Pacific Northwest can suffer from increased water temperatures, sedimentation, and changes in water quality and chemistry.

• Destroyed Endangered Species Habitat: Ironically, while fuels reduction projects are often delayed or prevented due to litigation over Endangered Species Act requirements, catastrophic fires that could be prevented by these projects can have devastating consequences for endangered species. For instance, the Biscuit fire in Oregon has destroyed 125,000 to 150,000 acres of spotted owl habitat.

• Soil Sterilization: Wildfires often require extensive site rehabilitation to protect resources and nearby communities from floods and landslides. Topsoils exposed to extreme heat can become water-repellant, and soil nutrients may be lost. It can take decades or even centuries for ecosystems to recover to pre-fire conditions.

• Soil Erosion: The protective covering provided by foliage and dead organic matter is removed, leaving the soil fully exposed to wind and water erosion. Accelerated soil erosion occurs, causing landslides and threatening aquatic habitats.

• Spread of Invasive Plant Species: Non-native woody plant species frequently invade burned areas. When weeds become established they can dominate the plant cover over broad landscapes, and become difficult and costly to control.

• Disease and Insect Infestations: Unless diseased or insect-infested trees are swiftly removed, infestations and disease can spread to healthy forests and private lands. Timely active management actions are needed to remove diseased or infested trees.

Source: Healthy Forests Initiative
Download PDF of Healthy Forests : An Initiative for Wildfire Prevention and Stronger Communities

Videos

Video: New "cut to length" logging technologies have great potential to help companies reduce thinning waste, minimize visual impact and greatly reduce soil compaction from heavy equipment.

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Here's the video from the initial public meeting held November 4, 2007 in Hamilton, Montana. The presenters are Tom and Char Robak, founders of the Big Sky Coalition.

Big Sky Coalition: 1st public meeting - Part 1


Big Sky Coalition: 1st public meeting - Part 2

Detailed information coming soon

Thank you for visiting. We are currently putting together a full-featured web site, with a wealth of information about our agenda, mission and goals. Please visit again soon!

Rally questions forest oversight

By PERRY BACKUS of the Missoulian (Repost of article)

HAMILTON - There were plenty of reasons not to be there. At 4 p.m., the bank thermometer claimed it was 66 degrees under beautiful blue skies. The outdoors beckoned on this perfect November Sunday afternoon. Couch potatoes had even more reason to stay away. The New England Patriots were trailing Peyton Manning's Colts in what many considered the biggest regular season NFL game ever played.

Still they came. There were 500 chairs set up inside the First Interstate Building at the Ravalli County Fairgrounds for the inaugural meeting of the Big Sky Coalition: Environmentalists with Common Sense.

By the time the meeting started, people were standing along the walls to listen and voice their support for the new organization that hopes to push through changes in the way national forest lands are managed.

The idea began with Bitterroot Valley residents Tom and Charlotte Robak.

Tired of what's become an annual ritual of fire and smoke, the couple worked with others in the valley to put together Sunday's rally as a way to gauge public sentiment. "We started about four weeks ago," Tom Robak said. "Everywhere we went, people told us that nobody would come."

Then people heard about the upcoming rally and the phone calls and letters began to arrive.

"We heard from people in Seeley Lake and Bonner," Charlotte said. "They called us and told us they supported what we were trying to do. Looking at all these people who've come; it brings me almost to tears."

Sonny LaSalle, a retired national forest supervisor, moderated the event. He said the new organization isn't about pointing fingers. "We're not in the blame game," LaSalle said. "The blame can be shared by an awful lot of folks. We have a crisis on our national forests. It's not just in the Bitterroot."

Fires are flaring up from California to Montana and the price to fight them continues to grow. Costs for fighting wildfires this year are expected to exceed $1 billion this year alone, LaSalle said.

Ten years ago when LaSalle retired, he said the average cost of fighting wildfire was about $1,000 an acre. Last summer's Tin Cup fire near Darby cost about $3,000 an acre, he said. Restoration costs - which include thinning either mechanically or with prescribed fire - range about $500 to $1,000 an acre, he said.

"Does it make economic sense that outside the wilderness that we allow fires to burn?" LaSalle said. "We pay all that money to fight it and then have to pay even more to restore it." LaSalle said there's no way to completely take fire and smoke out of the Bitterroot Valley's future. "We're not going to stop fire. We're not going to take all the smoke out of the valley," he said. "We live in a fire-prone ecosystem. Fire will always be here."

Through management, LaSalle said it's possible to decrease the intensity of wildfire. To accomplish that, he said, management efforts have to be large enough to make a difference. Instead of 300 acres here or 1,000 acres there, LaSalle suggested work needs to take place on a landscape scale closer to 30,000 to 40,000 acres.

For that to happen, he said, the appeals and lawsuits have to stop. The Big Sky Coalition hopes to find a way to stop the fighting, Tom Robak said. "We've never had a voice in this before," Robak told the crowd. "They are going to have to listen to us now." Robak said he hopes the coalition will grow into an organization that can provide a voice for people who want to see a change in the way national forest lands are being managed.

When Robak asked the crowd how many would like to see logging back on the Bitterroot National Forest, nearly everyone raised their hand. "We've been the silent majority for long enough," he said. "We need to raise money so we can hire our own staff. We know the other side has that. We need to have the same thing." Robak said he plans to challenge environmental groups to meet him in Helena for a sit-down meeting with the governor to begin the search for common ground.

In response to a question about the potential of the Big Sky Coalition veering into other issues like the controversial stream setbacks issue in Ravalli County, Robak said it would not. The coalition's focus will strictly be on forest issues, he said. "We will not be involved in streamside setbacks," Robak said. "I may personally be involved, but not the coalition."

State Sen. Rick Laible, R-Darby, told the crowd he was surprised to see so many turn out. "I thought that when we first started talking about starting this organization, if we had 100 people turn out it would be a miracle," he said. "Damn. This is a miracle."

When people turn out like this, politicians take notice. This is an opportunity to send a message to Congress, Laible said. "We can let them know that we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore," he said. "I'm tired of fire every summer. I'm tired of the valley being filled with smoke. I'm tired of being evacuated."

"We want to be able to send a message to Congress," Laible said. "This is what we want you to do. Get off your fat backsides and do something about it."

Don Hall of Corvallis walked into the dark night feeling like something just might happen. "I came here because I thought it was time for the silent majority to finally speak up," Hall said.

"I thought this was encouraging. I knew that these people were here and now I've seen them."

Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law. Full copyright retained by the original publication. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

First Public Meeting, November 4, 2007