USFS approves Bitterroot Front Project
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) After seven years of consideration, the Bitterroot National Forest has approved a logging and burning project along the western slope of the Bitterroot Valley.
On Tuesday, the Bitterroot National Forest announced that Forest Supervisor Matt Anderson signed a record of decision approving the Bitterroot Front Project, which includes road projects, logging and burning across 144,000 acres or 225 square miles. The project will be conducted in four phases, with each phase occurring in successive years.
Slightly more than 215 square miles will be logged or burned along the eastern side of the Bitterroot Mountains from the northern boundary with the Lolo National Forest south to the West Fork of the Bitterroot River. Portions of the area bulge farther west along various drainages, including Fred Burr, Blodget and Lost Horse creeks. The Lost Horse and North Lost Horse project units go so far as to butt up against the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
The area to be logged or burned is slightly smaller than what was originally proposed in August 2023, because the Sharrott Creek Fire burned about 3,000 acres of the Bitterroot Front Project west of Stevensville in August 2024.
So, commercial logging is authorized on almost 44 square miles, noncommercial cutting will occur across 5 square miles, and slashing will be carried out on 28 square miles. Most of the commercial logging is planned for the southern end of the project area and will occur during the first two phases or years. More than 35,000 acres of whitebark pine will be cut or burned as part of restoration efforts.
Anderson emphasized that the project doesn’t include any clearcutting, which the Forest Service calls “regeneration harvest,” nor changes in public-road access. Two miles of new road and 27 miles of temporary road would be built, while almost 11 miles would be decommissioned. The area already contains 61 miles of unauthorized roads so the project would add more than 8 miles of those to the Forest Service system.
Inventoried roadless areas form a buffer between general Bitterroot Forest and the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness and the Roadless Rule allows logging and burning in roadless areas as long as the work is within a quarter-mile of existing roads or private land boundaries. Treatments are planned on approximately 137 square miles within the roadless areas. These include 1,930 acres of commercial logging and 1,020 acres of noncommercial thinning with the rest being prescribed burns or slashing.
Anderson said the Forest Service will verify that the existing conditions of each planning unit match the conditions assumed in the planning documents. If they don’t, activities such as logging and burning in those units may be adjusted. However, no more commercial logging will be added, and noncommercial logging would be expanded only into areas where commercial logging was planned but abandoned.
Last June, Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins proposed rescinding the Roadless Rule, which has protected backcountry forest land and wildlife habitat since 2001. A decision is expected soon. If the Roadless Rule is rescinded, Anderson said the amount of commercial logging won’t increase in the project area, but it’s uncertain whether more roads will be built.
Anderson said the project met the requirements of the 1987 Bitterroot Forest Plan, because of an overarching amendment approved in 2023 that modified requirements for elk habitat effectiveness, winter range thermal cover, old growth, snags and coarse woody debris. Anderson said he didn’t need to consider the project-specific amendments proposed earlier.
However, five environmental groups — Friends of the Bitterroot, Friends Of The Clearwater, Native Ecosystems Council, Wildearth Guardians and Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment — sued the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service in 2024 challenging the 2023 programmatic amendment and how the project deals with thermal cover and road-density standards. Missoula federal district judge Dana Christensen heard oral arguments on April 23 and could issue a ruling by June. If he rules against the Forest Service, his decision could raise questions about the validity of Anderson’s decision.
More than 90% of the Bitterroot Front Project is within a few of the 250 highest risk firesheds identified in a January 2022 U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildfire Crisis Strategy. Part of the project is also within a community protection zone, a region where communities and private land are considered at high risk of damage from wildfires. Pointing to the Sharrott Creek Fire and the 2016 Roaring Mountain Fire, Anderson justified his decision saying the project would reduce wildfire risk to Ravalli County communities.
However, wildfire studies show that logged and thinned areas don’t stop catastrophic wildfires such as the Roaring Lion or the Lolo Peak fires. Such fires erupt due to extremely hot, dry conditions and then are pushed along by high winds. The high winds not only make forests burn hotter, but they also carry firebrands far from the active front of the fire, so fires can spread quickly, leaping over thinned or logged areas.
Adam Rissien of WildEarth Guardians said Ravalli County residents have the power to reduce the risk to their property without depending on the Forest Service and a project that will take four or more years to complete.
“Protecting homes and communities from wildfire risks requires creating defensible space within the first 100 feet of a structure, and certainly not miles away in the Roadless Area. Government funding should support property owners’ efforts to implement fire-wise practices, not to support money-losing timber sales that do little to address the high winds, drought and extreme temperatures that really push wildfires through the narrow Bitterroot canyons,” Rissien said in an email. “Sadly, the Forest Service decision will degrade fish and wildlife habitat and further perpetuates the false idea that the agency can log its way out of the climate crisis.”
The U.S. Forest Service began scoping efforts on the proposed Bitterroot Front Project in April 2022, three years after Anderson held a series of “pre-scoping” meetings in 2019 to give the public more of a heads-up on the project.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.