Regional wildfire mitigation efforts OK'd for more than $2M

Last July, lighting struck a remote stretch of wilderness in the mountains north of Ovando.

The resulting brush and timber fire, the most recent major Northwest Montana wildfire, then scorched some 3,700 acres of Flathead and Lolo national forest over roughly three months until heavy snows finally doused the last of its embers in mid October.

A similar strike up in the forests surrounding an expanding Flathead Valley or neighboring Libby could prove exponentially worse.

Federal, state, and local officials and working groups remain well aware of the trouble. And they’ve now been served a major leg up for standing efforts to help mitigate such a blaze.

Stratagems for tamping down the threat of catastrophic wildfires in Flathead and Lincoln counties have so far clinched more than $2 million in critical, oft-elusive federal funding, officials said.

For Flathead County and Flathead National Forest, the federal Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership has approved roughly $842,000 this year for wildfire fuels reduction along 25 linear miles of multijurisdictional lands in the west and north valley, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The partnership also has approved nearly $1.3 million this year toward wildfire mitigation efforts for the Libby Surround Stewardship in Lincoln County and Kootenai National Forest, according to the NRCS.

Touting “conservation beyond boundaries,” the partnership is led by the NRCS and Forest Service, both of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that then promote collaboration among state, local and private entities.

The partnership started in 2014, annually selecting new three-year-long projects for funding.

FLATHEAD COUNTY ranks as the third most populous county in Montana, and 60% of its residents live in forested areas, according to a project summary by the NRCS.

The county also ranked third statewide in 2020 for total risk to structures by the Montana Wildfire Risk Assessment.

Sixty-five percent of the planned project also has been tapped for focused attention by way of elevated forest health concerns and wildfire risk by the Montana Forest Action Plan.

Growth in the valley has sparked in recent years, and if not built within forest lands, homes often are constructed within close proximity, which serves additional wildfire concern.

“Those are all combustibles, you know, the houses,” said Randy Brodehl, a Flathead County commissioner, former state representative and career firefighter who retired as chief of the Kalispell Fire Department.

Brodehl said the newly funded project comes atop a continued effort to help prevent catastrophic wildfires in the region.

Joint Chiefs' funding for Flathead County and Flathead National Forest will center on fire mitigation within an expanding wildland-urban interface and at-risk communities west of Kalispell near the Salish Mountains, north to the Whitefish Range, according to the NRCS.

The project area covers roughly 4,200 acres of “high priority and expensive noncommercial” forest, according to the service.

Sean Johnson, Kalispell-based NRCS supervisory district conservationist and Flathead project partner, said the project mainly aims to create 25 linear miles of treated ground that would act as a sort of fuel break connecting many thousands of acres already treated.

Generally, Johnson said, the 25 miles would span from near Ashley Lake, north toward Tally Lake.

Other project areas include Haskill Basin north of Whitefish and a stretch of foothills southwest of Kalispell. Each segment contains priority areas.

The project overall will connect an estimated 22,000 acres or more already treated for wildfire fuels reduction during the past decade, according to the NRCS.

“The goal — which obviously depends on landowner interest and where that interest actually falls — is to link as many of those acres together as we can, just to make a bigger impact,” Johnson said.

He said private landowners who are interested have until March 4 to apply for 2022 funding.

Planned mitigation efforts include thinning, mulching, piling and prescribed burns, according to the service.

Flathead National Forest spokesperson Tami MacKenzie said the federal funding proves critical, the fruit multi-agency planning that will now transition quickly into action.

The Flathead proposal was largely developed through collaboration with FireSafe Flathead, which includes participation from NRCS, the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, Flathead County, the Northwest Montana Hazardous Fuels Program and the National Forest Foundation.

“This was really developed at every level of government here, which is something we’re really excited about,” MacKenzie said. “Not every community pulls together like they did here.”

The Flathead group was denied Joint Chiefs’ funding last year, Johnson said, noting that their project scope was then expanded this year based on rejection critiques to include, among other additions, protections for Whitefish’s municipal water from Haskill Basin.

“That was one of the things we got dinged on last year,” Johnson said.

Once received, MacKenzie said, the funding would allow work to start without having to wade through lasting planning efforts.

“Basically, what this is going to do is take our implementation schedule from something that could be five, six, seven, 10 years,” MacKenzie said, “and shorten that time frame into less than five years.”

IN LINCOLN County and the Kootenai National Forest, Joint Chiefs’ funding will specifically target wildfire fuels within about 4,600 acres surrounding Libby, according to the NRCS.

The NRCS noted that “over time and in part due to fire suppression, fuels have increased creating conditions that promote uncharacteristically severe wildfires within these mixed conifer forests.”

Like Kalispell, many Libby-area residents have staked their claim in forested areas.

“We have a spread out population,” said Lincoln County Forester Jennifer Nelson. “This project is one really important piece to reduce fuels in the wildland-urban interface and help protect lives and property, which is the county’s focus.”

The project remains part of a greater ongoing initiative encompassing more than a quarter million acres, according to the NRCS.

The project previously was denied funding. It’s big, and so now is the money.

“Getting almost $1.3 million is a pretty big story,” Nelson said. “And being awarded a Joint Chiefs' grant, that’s an accomplishment. There are not very many of them given out.”

Also cross-jurisdictional, the Libby Surround Stewardship includes wildland fire work to protect the new $11.5 million replacement dam and reservoir spanning the Flower Creek drainage, according to the service.

The reservoir supplies water to 1,800 households, according to the NRCS.

Nelson said the overall project area includes the Libby Asbestos Superfund Site, namely the area known as Operable Unit 3.

This unit includes the now-defunct vermiculite mine where asbestos contamination — killing hundreds and sickening some 1,500 others — originated and still remains throughout the landscape, according to a 2021 publication on the site by the Environmental Protection Agency.

OU3 will not be treated during this round of funding, at least currently, but the area eventually will see additional wildfire remediation efforts, Nelson said.

“There’s always concern about having a fire in there,” she said, later adding that the area is starting to reforest and otherwise remains surrounded by forest.

Asbestos would concentrate in ash during a wildfire in OU3, with the potential of also being carried off site by smoke, according to a Forest Service pamphlet on operable unit monitoring.

“This is just one piece of the puzzle,” Nelson said, “because a spark can come from anywhere.”

Collaboration for the project included Lincoln County, DNRC, the American Forest Foundation, the Kootenai Forests to Rivers Initiative, Stimson Lumber Company, the Lincoln County Firesafe Council and the Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Coalition.

WORD IS not yet final on when the funding actually will land in Flathead or Lincoln counties.

Johnson said it remains contingent on final congressional budgeting for the current federal fiscal year.

“We don’t know when or how much,” Johnson said of the year ahead. “All we know is that we’ve been selected for funding. There’s a little bit of a waiting game that we’re in right now.”

He said the respective amounts so far approved for either project in Flathead and Lincoln counties cover only the first year.

Johnson said similar funding requests for the three-year projects will be submitted for each of the following two years, through 2024.

Like planners in Flathead County, county forester Nelson said efforts in Lincoln County will be quick to move once the money clears Congress.

“I think we’re ready to hit the ground,” she said. “The Forest Service and the NRCS, too, have been doing a lot of groundwork.

“So, I think, once that money comes through,” she said, “they’re going to be ready to go.”

Reporter John McLaughlin can be reached at 758-4439 or jmclaughlin@dailyinterlake.com