Into the forest: Forest thinning is multi-faceted work

Treating forested land involves a multi-faceted approach.

That’s what I learned from traveling with two U.S. Forest Service employees into the Swan Valley last week.

Andy Reed has worked as a timber sales forester out of Bigfork’s Swan Lake Ranger District for more than six years.  He and Wade Muehlhof, public affairs officer in Kalispell, showed me some forested areas that have been treated, or thinned, in recent years.

We focused on the Condon Loop Road area, which included units that have been “broadcast burned” with prescribed fires to eliminate undergrowth. Coupled with that, various trees were removed with logging methods as part of the Meadow Smith timber sale, Reed said.

Examples of trees that were removed include Lodgepole pine, Douglas fir and Engelmann spruce, which are less fire resistant than Ponderosa pine and Western larch.

Not all of the Lodgepole pine were removed from treated units, but removing them increased the survivability of the existing stand, Reed explained. Much of the Lodgepole pine were dying from mountain pine beetle infestations.

Not all of the units along Condon Loop Road were treated, however. “You can just imagine a fire on a hot day,” Reed said, gazing at an untreated unit across the road.

“Some of our projects get really complex,” he added. For example, a timber sale could have more than 50 units.

Muehlhof noted there are a variety of specialists involved in treating a unit of land. These can include a soil scientist, wildlife and fisheries biologists, silviculturalist, hydrologist, fuels specialist and botanist, for example.

“We get a lot of scrutiny on our timber sales,” Muehlhof said. “There’s a lot of work and science involved in each one.”

There are differing viewpoints about how to best manage a particular piece of land. Reed said that designing a fuel reduction treatment in the forest “is not black and white. A lot of this forestry stuff is gray.”

Examples of timber sales currently underway in the Swan Lake Ranger District include the Porter Mount sale in the Island Unit in the Blacktail Mountain area and the Six Mile project around the Swan Lake community.

The Six Mile project is part of a stewardship contract, Reed explained. This allows goods to be exchanged for services. An example could include saw timber being exchanged for chipping or mastication, which grinds up downed logs and small diameter trees for fuels reduction. Other examples could include precommercial thinning and road upgrades or decommissioning. In a such a scenario, companies compete for the contract.

Reed believes stewardship contracts are a “win-win” for both the Forest Service and private companies. “We allow for contractor innnovation, which allows for more efficiency and cost-competiteness,” he said. “We’re generating the best value for the government.

“Our mission is very diverse,” Reed added. “It makes it challenging. Eighty percent of our energy is planning a project.”

Reporter@BigforkEagle.com