The Idaho director of the Bureau of Land Management has approved a plan to vastly expand the area of southern Idaho on which the federal agency works to reduce fuels for wildfires.
A signed amendment to the agency's Fire, Fuels and Related Vegetation Management Plan "establishes a fire management program aimed at reducing fuel loadings that are prone to catastrophic wildfires, preserving important sagebrush habitat for sage grouse and returning fire to a more natural role in the ecosystem," a BLM news release states.
Approval of the plan comes after the BLM analyzed five alternatives regarding fire management on 5 million acres of BLM-administered public lands in south-central and southeastern Idaho. The decision amends 12 land-use plans that were written between 1975 and 1988.
"The BLM believes implementation of this management direction will improve the health of the land, conserve wildlife habitat and protect rural communities from wildfire," the news release states.
The area includes public lands managed by the Upper Snake, Pocatello, Burley and Shoshone field offices, which are part of the BLM's Idaho Falls and Twin Falls districts. The environmental study for the plan examined hazardous fuels treatments in forested areas with stands of juniper, aspen and conifers. BLM officials said the study "addressed the need to reduce stands of invasive annual grasses, cheatgrass and medusahead rye that are responsible for large, fast-moving wildfires in recent years."
The new plan recommends that the BLM increase hazardous-fuels treatments from a current average of about 25,000 acres to an average of 154,000 acres each year for the next 10 years. Some of the treatments would be in the "wildland-urban interface" to protect property, the BLM said. Others would be in forested stands to reduce the buildup of hazardous fuels.
