Lemonade Fire salvage harvest project to occur near Marion

A salvage harvest project has received the green light from the Tally Lake Ranger District for trees affected by the Lemonade Fire, which burned around 668 acres last September.

Bill Mulholland, district ranger for Tally Lake, signed the decision memo June 6.

“I have decided to authorize commercial harvest of 250 acres of fire damaged trees, using group-based mechanized logging equipment and post-harvest fuels mitigation and reforestation,” Mulholland wrote.

The project will take place in the Griffin Creek area of the ranger district, approximately 21 miles west of Kalispell and near Marion. The decision also allows for the construction of a temporary road that is half a mile in length.

Salvage harvest projects are a regenerative treatment that remove dead or dying trees due to wildfire impacts. The goal of the project, according to the Flathead National Forest, is to capture the economic value of the fire-killed trees.

Overtime, fire-killed trees lose their value as the wood deteriorates from fungi, insect damage and decay, according to the National Forest.

The goal of the project is to reestablish forested conditions and facilitate recovery to align with the desired conditions listed in the 2018 Flathead National Forest Land Management Plan.

To accomplish this, the project will include several activities, as listed in the scoping letter. These include commercially harvesting 250 acres of fire damaged trees, completing fuel mitigation efforts after the harvest and the planting of western larch, western white pines and ponderosa pines in areas where regeneration may prove difficult.

The decision also concluded that the project is categorically exempt from documentation of an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement.

This is because the area does not exceed 250 acres, among other reasons, such as because the area does not contain floodplains or municipal watersheds, there is no congressionally delegated designation such as wilderness or national recreation area and there are no archeological sites or historic areas on the property.

“This particular project fits very perfectly and plainly into the listed congressional exemptions,” said Kira Powell, the project leader.

According to Powell, the next step is to write up a contract and put it out for a bid. The decision indicated that the harvest would occur this winter to ensure it is economically viable.

“Because of the time sensitivity of salvage harvests … the longer the company [who is awarded the bid] waits, the less value the wood would have,” Powell said. “So I imagine they’ll try to knock it out this winter.”

Reporter Kate Heston can be reached at kheston@dailyinterlake.com or 758-4459.