Rehab work begins

The work goes on weeks and even months after the last puff of smoke rises from a forest fire.

Burned Area Emergency Response work is well under way on the Flathead National Forest's major fires of 2007.

Most notable is the rehabilitation work on the Tally Lake Ranger District, where the Brush Creek Fire burned nearly 30,000 acres during the summer.

Soon after the fire was contained in late August, firefighters went to work to restore areas impacted by bulldozers and other fire suppression activities.

That work is separate from the emergency response efforts that will be carried into next summer, said Craig Kendall, a hydrologist who is Flathead Forest's emergency response team leader.

"It's really important to separate BAER from suppression rehabilitation," Kendall said.

The initial rehabilitation work largely involved restoring 50 miles of bulldozer lines. BAER work is separately funded and is aimed at mitigating damage caused by the fire itself.

The Flathead Forest has requested $170,000 in emergency funding for the Brush Creek Fire and an additional $220,000 for work on several fires in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex: Corporal, Calbick, Railley Mountain and a portion of the Fool Creek Fire.

Most of the wilderness work will involve tree removal and erosion-control measures on 35 miles of trail, along with monitoring for noxious weeds, Kendall said.

The potential for noxious weed infestation is a major concern for the Brush Creek emergency response efforts.

Forest officials are well aware of the massive, first-time infestation of a noxious weed called tansy ragwort after the 1994 Little Wolf Fire, which burned not far from the Brush Creek perimeter.

Kendall said planning is under way to spray any noxious weed infestations that show up next summer.

"Our hope is to get on top of it before it gets out of control," he said.

Weed control after the Little Wolf Fire included large area closures aimed at preventing vehicles and people from spreading tansy ragwort to other parts of the forest.

Other emergency response work on Brush Creek will focus on erosion and flooding control. An initial step involved assessing burn severity inside the fire perimeter with the help of satellite imagery.

Kendall said there was a "high" burn severity on roughly 5,000 acres, with the fire burning away ground cover and duff on the forest floor and raising the potential for erosion.

However, the fire burned in a mosaic pattern, leaving patches of green and varied burn intensities between high-severity areas.

"That mixture sort of helps to reduce the potential for flooding," Kendall said.

Even so, BAER work will include the replacement of nine road culverts with larger culverts capable of handling increased runoff from burned slopes.

Previous rehabilitation work on the Flathead Forest has involved reseeding burned areas, but that's not in the mix for the Brush Creek area, Kendall said.

"For many years, we used to automatically reseed burned areas," he said, adding that new research "indicates that seeding can only have marginal success in reducing soil erosion."

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