Summer's fires burn 41,000 acres of Plum Creek timber

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

This summer's fires have burned more than 41,000 acres of Plum Creek Timber Co. lands in Montana, but financial costs won't be known until timber salvage operations are complete, a company official said Monday.

"This is a large event," said Tom Ray, Plum Creek's Northwest Regional manager. "There are a lot of acres that were burned out there."

Montana's largest private landowner was impacted by five fires: 3,600 acres on the 11,754-acre Black Cat Fire north of Frenchtown; 18,878 acres on the 36,060-acre Jocko Lakes Fire near Seeley Lake; 14,221 acres on the 99,000-acre Chippy Creek Fire north of Hot Springs; 1,035 acres on the 29,921-acre Brush Creek Fire west of Whitefish; and 3,306 acres on the 6,231-acre Mile Marker 124 Fire east of Clinton.

Ray said company lands within those fire perimeters are still being assessed to prepare for timber salvage operations that will be carried out over the next year.

"It's a mosaic out there," he said. "Some of it is totally burnt and in some cases there are green islands within the perimeters."

Ray said it's impossible to project financial losses because of varying species compositions and burning conditions from one acre to the next.

"Some of those trees will be black on the outside but completely merchantable," he said. And some trees will be completely lost.

"Until we get these logs on the ground and start merchandising them, that's something we won't know," Ray said, referring to financial impact.

In 2003, fires burned more than 40,000 acres of Plum Creek lands in Montana. Those fires, however, seemed to have a more severe impact on the Plum Creek landscape than this summer's fires, Ray said.

The company ended up estimating a loss of about $4 million in timber value in the 2003 fire season, Ray said.

Timber salvage is expected to get under way as soon as this week on the Chippy Creek and Brush Creek fires, Ray said. The company will be adjusting its harvest plans to account for an influx of salvage timber supply.

"We'll delay some of the green harvests that we had planned and we will meld in this fire salvage that we will have going over the next 10 months," Ray said. "We want to have salvage operations completed by early next summer. We think it's imperative to capture the value of those trees that are out there."

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com