Laura Lundquist<\/p>\n
HAMILTON (Missoula Current)\u00a0– Bracing himself against Monday morning\u2019s wind and snow squalls, Dominick DellaSala surveyed the Bitterroot mountainside that was burned this summer by the Observation Point Fire.<\/p>\n
His gaze swept over the isolated, scorched and dying trees, bare ground, and blackened stumps that are the remnants of the forest cut down in the Bitterroot National Forest\u2019s 2018 West Side Vegetation Project. Having worked for\u00a0more than four decades<\/a>\u00a0as a global biodiversity and climate change scientist, he\u2019s seen similar situations with logging projects around the world. Based on the assessments he\u2019s completed, he pronounced it \u201ca disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m looking at whether or not what the forest service is doing is true restoration or degradation. I work with a global team of scientists from Australia, Canada and Europe, and we\u2019re finding the same patterns over and over again. What we\u2019re finding is these big fast-moving fires are the principally result of extreme fire weather combined with heavily logged landscapes, giving us these fast-moving fires that are uncontrollable,\u201d DellaSala said. \u201cThinning can\u2019t get us out of this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n DellaSala was in Missoula to give a talk on logging and climate change at the University of Montana on Tuesday evening. So on Monday, he took advantage of a tour of the West Side Project area south of Hamilton hosted by local forest advocacy groups, including Friends of the Bitterroot, Friends of the Clearwater, Yaak Valley Forest Council and WildEarth Guardians. The groups asked DellaSala to assess the West Side Project and the effects of the recent fire and use them to project what might happen if the proposed Bitterroot Front Project is approved.<\/p>\n The proposed Bitterroot Front Project extends along the eastern side of the Bitterroot Range approximately from Lolo to Darby, and various treatments would affect about 216 square miles, including 43 square miles of commercial logging, over the course of 20 years. That would include the construction of 2 miles of new permanent road and up to 27 miles of temporary road.<\/p>\n The Bitterroot National Forest was expected to issue a decision on the Bitterroot Front Project in July, but it\u2019s been delayed, said Adam Rissien of WildEarth Guardians. So forest watch dogs are hoping that the decision doesn\u2019t go so heavy on logging that it hurts ecological functioning.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re looking at the Bitterroot Front Project as being a threat to old-growth characteristics and the species that depend on them,\u201d Rissien said. \u201cThe Forest Service has done tours like this, so we wanted to provide our own perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n The remnants of the Observation Point Fire.<\/p>\n The remnants of the Observation Point Fire.<\/p>\n The burned part of the West Side Project demonstrates what the forest advocates don\u2019t want to see. Pointing to nearby parts of the forest that weren\u2019t treated, Jeff Lonn of Friends of the Bitterroot said the existing forest wasn\u2019t that thick to begin with and the tree and shrub species were diverse. Then, in some of the West Side Project plots, the U.S. Forest Service did an \u201cirregular harvest,\u201d which takes out several trees to create irregular openings. The Forest Service cut out a lot of trees, some of which were smaller but some were old, large Douglas fir that had grown there for centuries. That left isolated Ponderosa pines with large gaps between them and minimal undergrowth.<\/p>\n \u201cThe public looks at it, and they like city parks, and it looks pretty good to them. But if you know what was there before, there\u2019s a big difference,\u201d Lonn said. \u201cNone of the commercial logging units had any potential for active crown fire.\u201d<\/p>\n After the Observation Point Fire burned through the area in July, the Bitterroot National Forest boasted that firefighters were able to control the fire because of the forest thinning work.<\/p>\n “By spreading, opening up the canopy and reducing the ladder fuels and the density of that canopy, we’re able to create conditions where the fire, which started on the bottom below us, was able to run up the slope but stay on the ground,” Amy Campbell Bitterroot Forest silviculturist\u00a0told KPAX News<\/a>\u00a0in late July.<\/p>\n But the forest advocates say that wasn\u2019t the real explanation for why the wildfire didn\u2019t turn into a blaze like the Roaring Lion Fire of 2016. Although Montana is suffering from drought, the weather conditions were relatively moderate during the Observation Point Fire compared to the Roaring Lion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Forest Service compared (the Observation Point Fire) to Roaring Lion Fire. But they got on (the Observation Point Fire) right away, and it wasn\u2019t very windy. I think those are really big differences,\u201d Lonn said.<\/p>\n View from the Observation Point fire location.<\/p>\n View from the Observation Point fire location.<\/p>\n Lonn added that the Observation Point Fire tended to slow when it reached unlogged areas, because more trees and vegetation help retain forest moisture. Whereas the thinned areas on eastern and southeastern slopes that are exposed to the sun were more dried out, so there, the fire burned hotter. Now, on those slopes, some of the soil is sterile, and the Ponderosa pines that were left by the logging crews are dying.<\/p>\n Michele Dieterich of Friends of the Bitterroot said the Forest Service\u2019s own research predicted that the fire would burn hotter in thinned areas. She rattled off a number of research papers published by the Forest Service or coauthored by Forest Service researchers between 1940 and now that all reach the same conclusion.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery single one of them says if you reduce the canopy cover, you increase the severity of the fire,\u201d Dieterich said. \u201cThe Bitterroot Front Project is supposed to be all about fire but if they\u2019re going to reduce the canopy, it means (hotter fires).\u201d<\/p>\n One of the main things the forest advocates want to limit or stop is the logging of old-growth areas. Some old-growth areas are in the inventoried roadless area that buffers the Bitterroot-Selway Wilderness from the rest of the national forest. But the Bitterroot Front proposal would allow commercial logging in roadless areas within a quarter mile of any road so that would include chunks of the roadless area.<\/p>\n After announcing the intent to develop a national definition of old-growth forests and a rule to protect them, the Forest Service\u00a0announced in January<\/a>\u00a0that it was abandoning the effort and would leave identification and protection up to each national forest.<\/p>\n Then in June, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins\u00a0announced she would rescind<\/a>\u00a0the Forest Service roadless rule, which would open up almost 6.4 million acres of inventoried roadless areas in Montana, including the area along the Bitterroot Front, to more development. As the comment period closed in September, an analysis of a subset of the comments showed\u00a099% opposed<\/a>\u00a0rescinding the roadless rule.<\/p>\n