Missoula County urges Lolo N.F. to think beyond forest thinning
Missoula County is urging the Lolo National Forest to reconsider the narrative that forest treatment alone can reduce the threat that wildfire poses to structures without also addressing the importance of a proper home ignition zone.
The Ninemile Ranger District is currently scoping its proposed Sorrel Springs Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project, which is intended to improve forest health and reduce the potential impact to homes surrounding the project.
“They've identified roughly 100 homes within a half-mile of the project area,” said county planner Chet Crowser. “What we're pointing out is that reducing the fuels and doing thinning projects aren't necessarily indicative of protecting structures.”
Climate change, wildfire suppression and human encroachment into the Wildland Urban Interface have forced an adaptation to wildfire, and it's forced officials to alter their management plans.
As a result, Missoula County in a letter is urging the Lolo National Forest to focus less of its mechanical fuel reduction on thinning and more on addressing the home ignition zone, saying it was the most effective way to prevent structure loss during a wildfire.
“While we understand that these treatments will decrease stand densities and improve forest health conditions, we are less convinced that the proposed action will achieve the intended risk mitigations for the more than 100 residences you mentioned are within a half-mile of the project area, absent significant Home Ignition Zone work,” the county wrote in its letter to Ninemile District Ranger Chris Gauger.
Commissioners said that such fuel reduction projects leave many to believe that they eliminate the risk to homes within the urban interface. That leads to a misconception on how structures actually ignite and burn during wildfire episodes.
It also leads to a false sense of security, commissioners said, noting last year's fire in Denton.
“The home ignition zone is what created this structure ignition problem in Denton, which isn't surrounded by forest but is out in the grassland and still burned,” said Crowser.
The county is urging the Forest Service to do more to promote structures that are more resistant to ember showers. Such an approach would give forest managers more options when making decisions, commissioners said.
“We need to seize the opportunity associated with projects like the Sorrel Springs Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project to recalibrate the narrative of how we speak about fire on the landscape and help move away from the standard paradigm that frames wildland-urban-fire disasters as a fire-control problem, rather than primarily a home ignition problem principally determined by the home ignition zone,” the county wrote.