Lolo Forest fast-tracks salvage logging in burned areas

November 14, 2017 by Laura Lundquist

SUPERIOR – A few of this summer’s wildfires burned through timber that the Forest Service planned to log eventually. Now, logging will happen sooner but only as part of smaller salvage operations.

During Tuesday’s public scoping meeting at the Superior Ranger Station, Ninemile District Ranger Erin Phelps and other Forest Service specialists explained their fast-tracked proposal to log about 2,700 acres within the boundaries of the Sunrise Fire and 2,150 acres of the Sheep Gap Fire.

USFWS bull-trout opinion halts Swan Valley logging project

May 17, 2017 by Laura Lundquist

After nonprofit organizations challenged a 2015 finding that logging wouldn’t affect bull trout, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently reversed itself, stopping a logging project at the edge of the Mission Mountain Wilderness.

On Friday, Flathead National Forest Supervisor Chip Weber announced he was withdrawing his Notice of No Significant Impact involving the Cold Jim Fuels Reduction and Forest Health Project in the Swan Lake District. The project was intended to be part of an effort to reduce fuels in the wildland-urban interface. In a May 12 letter, Weber said his September 2016 decision to allow the logging project to move forward was based on USFWS biologists agreeing that bull trout in the area about 3 miles northwest of Condon would not be affected.

Logging project wouldn't have stopped Roaring Lion Fire

August 10, 2016 by Laura Lundquist

The Roaring Lion Fire is causing some new wrinkles in old arguments over wildfire suppression.

The 11-day-old Roaring Lion Fire southwest of Hamilton is now nothing like the fire-storm that appeared on July 31. On that day, volunteer Rick Potts was manning the St. Mary Lookout west of Stevensville when he spotted the first tendrils of smoke. By the time, he and other lookouts could triangulate the position, the fire was billowing smoke high into the sky over the Bitteroot Mountains.

Judge halts Beaverhead Deerlodge timber project

August 03, 2016 by Laura Lundquist

A federal judge halted a timber project Friday because the Forest Service might have overstepped its bounds in bypassing the public process.

On Friday, Missoula federal District Judge Donald Molloy put a hold on the Moosehorn Ditch Salvage Timber Sale in time to halt logging scheduled to begin on Aug. 1. In so doing, he gave attorneys for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystem Council time to press their lawsuit that the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest approved a timber sale without going through a public process as required by law.