Loggers to join pine beetle battle
SNRA project would curb fire danger
Comments sought
Last week, the Sawtooth National
Recreation Area published its Red Tree Fuels Reduction Project Environmental
Assessment and is seeking public feedback on the 115-page document. Comments on
the project will be accepted until April 14.
"Since time is of the essence if we are
to begin implementation this field season, we will be reviewing the comments and
issuing a decision as soon as possible," wrote SNRA Deputy Area Ranger Lisa
Stoeffler in a letter to the public. To obtain a copy of the EA, or to comment
write, call or e-mail:
Sawtooth National Recreation Area
HC 64, Box 8291|
Ketchum, ID 83340|
(208) 727-5000
Stanley Ranger Station
HC 64, Box 9900
Stanley, ID 83278
(208) 774-3000
http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/sawtooth
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to
allow the harvest of an estimated 3.3 million board feet of insect-infected
lodgepole pine trees in the Sawtooth Valley over the next five years.
The logging operation would be part of a
plan designed to combat the fire danger created when indigenous mountain pine
beetles killed thousands of acres of lodgepole pine trees in the area in the
last five years.
The Sawtooth Valley’s rust-colored,
beetle-killed trees stand out under a waning sun. Boundary Creek, in the
foreground, is one of nine areas the U.S. Forest Service is proposing to treat
to alleviate fire danger posed the dead and dying lodgepole pine trees.
Express photo by Greg Stahl
The plan, which focuses on the so-called
urban-wildland interface where private properties and forests mesh, would target
2,465 acres at nine Sawtooth Valley sites from Smiley Creek to near Stanley
Lake. Cutting of dead or mature lodgepole pine trees and sagebrush would help
alleviate fire danger in treated areas.
"Current hazardous fuel loading, as a
result of the mountain pine beetle infestation, would exhibit extreme fire
behavior if ignited," according to the Red Tree Fuels Reduction Project
Environmental Assessment.
To alleviate this fire danger, the Forest
Service is proposing to employ a multifaceted plan that would include forest
thinning, patch cutting, construction of fire breaks and construction of
defensible space around homes and campgrounds.
In areas of heavy beetle mortality, the
plan calls for removal of trees ranging from 7 to 15 inches in diameter. In
areas of limited beetle mortality, trees greater than 8 inches in diameter would
be removed.
To create defensible space, the project
would allow for removal of fuels nearly a mile away from structures and private
land. However, the document states that "treatment distance will not be uniform
in all areas."
The only major change in the project since
it was announced last May is that a treatment area near Smiley Creek was added.
The Rocky Mountain Ranch, a guest ranch,
is in one of the visibly hardest hit parts of the Sawtooth Valley. The ranch’s
manager said Monday that the Forest Service plan seems to make sense.
"It seems timely, and it seems
appropriate," said ranch manager Bill Leavell. "Something certainly needs to
happen, and it’s all within the realm of the possible."
SNRA Deputy Area Ranger Lisa Stoeffler
said the nine proposed treatment sites, including areas around Rocky Mountain
Ranch, comprise about 85 percent of the wildland-interface areas that have been
impacted by beetles on the SNRA.
"It’s those areas that fit the same
prescription," she said. "They are similar timber stands that have heavy tree
mortality. They’re adjacent to interface areas. They’re accessible, and they’re
on gentle terrain, which gives a wide range of treatment options."
Mountain pine beetles are nothing new to
the Sawtooth Mountains. The beetles have coexisted with fire as long as there
have been lodgepole pine trees.
In ecosystems without public use, mountain
pine beetle-killed trees burn and prompt the regeneration of new lodgepole pine
stands.
"It is a naturally occurring cycle for
regeneration," according to the EA.
Accurate records regarding wildfire
suppression in the Sawtooth Valley and Stanley Basin date to 1948. Wildfire
suppression has occurred since approximately 1905, and since 1948, 326 wildfires
have been suppressed in the lodgepole pine stands of the Sawtoothh Valley.
"This suppression has allowed for a high
density, even aged lodgepole pine community and a large amount of fuel on the
ground," the E.A. states. "During mountain pine beetle outbreaks, mature,
even-aged lodgepole pine stands can experience widespread tree mortality,
killing up to a million trees each year. This native insect, the mountain pine
beetle, is present on the SNRA and is at an epidemic level."
Of the 756,000 acres within the SNRA,
there are approximately 288,000 acres of forested land. Areas occupied by almost
pure lodgepole pine forests are roughly 137,973 acres. The SNRA’s other tree
species include a mix of subalpine fir, Douglas fir, aspen, Englemann spruce,
and whitebark pine.
The proposed Red Tree Fuels Reduction
Project would affect 2 percent of the SNRA’s lodgepole pine forests.