Lonesome Wood Vegetation Management Proposal Overview Gallatin National Forest Hebgen Lake Ranger Di

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Lonesome Wood Vegetation Management Proposal
OverviewGallatin National ForestHebgen Lake
Ranger District

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Why is the project proposed?

PRIMARY FOCUS--To improve firefighter and public
safety by reducing fuels on public lands around
the wildland urban interface (WUI), evacuation
routes, and in strategic fuel breaks.
To avoid these situations.
OTHER OBJECTIVES
To reduce insect and disease susceptibility in
treated areas.
To enhance aspen habitat
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Background

• Lonesome Wood Vegetation Management proposal is
  an outcome of the Hebgen Watershed Risk
  Assessment, completed in November 2005. The Risk
  Assessment was a landscape level coarse
  assessment of the danger of wildfire to a variety
  of resources in this area, if no management
  actions are taken. The watershed assessment
  evaluated approximately 68,000
• acres north, west and southwest of Hebgen
  Lake. The interdisciplinary team that conducted
  the analysis considered existing, historical, and
  projected future landscape conditions, and
  weighed these considerations with current Forest
  Plan management direction and the current and
  projected social setting.
• Within the project area there are private
  residences with business operations. The project
  area also includes 34 recreation residences in
  four summer home groups including Lonesomehurst,
  Romset, Rumbaugh, and Clark Springs. There are
  more than a dozen dispersed recreation areas,
  four developed recreation sites, access for 8
  trail systems and 15 forest road systems.
  Several hundred people may be recreating or
  conducting business in the vicinity on a typical
  summer day.
• Direction in the GNF Forest Plan (1987) as
  amended, and the National Fire Plan (2000) was
  incorporated in the design of this proposal. The
  proposal meets the intent of the Healthy Forest
  Restoration Act.
• Gallatin County has a draft Community Wildfire
  Protection Plan (CWPP), which is scheduled to be
  published in Spring 2007. The entire Lonesome
  Wood Vegetation Management project area is
  identified in the draft CWPP as a WUI area at
  risk from wildfires. A CWPP identifies areas for
  hazardous fuel reduction treatments, sets
  priorities for treating them, and recommends the
  types and methods of treatment on Federal and
  non-Federal land that will help protect one or
  more at risk communities and their essential
  infrastructure. (HFRA Website)

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Where is the proposal ?

• The project area is located on National
  Forest System (NFS) lands on the west side of
  Hebgen Lake near the community of West
  Yellowstone, MT.
• The Lonesome Wood Vegetation Management
  project area extends from Highway 20 on the
  south, Hebgen Lake on the east and north.

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What is proposed?

• Vegetation treatments that reduce wildland fuels
  are the primary focus of the project around the
  wildland-urban interface (WUI) and evacuation
  routes. In addition, treatments on areas in and
  adjacent to WUI are designed to meet fuel and
  other resource objectives.
• Thinning and/or prescribed burning is proposed on
  about 3,200 acres within the 24,000 acre project
  area. The primary treatment activity is described
  and is identified in the table and on the
  Proposed Action maps in this program.
  Treatments within the individual units vary, and
  as a result, inclusions of multiple treatments
  are often incorporated.

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Activities and Desired Outcome

• Reduce Stand Density by Thinning.
• Units identified for commercial thin may have any
  size class of tree removed. A ground based
  logging system would be the primary method of
  tree removal. Trees over six inches in diameter
  would most likely be skidded to landings and
  hauled offsite for use as a commercial product.
  Trees less than 6 inches in diameter may also
  need to be removed in conjunction with commercial
  logging, as described in the next paragraph.
• Units identified for small tree removal either
  have trees with mixed ages or are primarily small
  trees. Treatment would be limited to trees
  smaller than 6 inches in diameter. The
  treatment may be implemented by hand or with
  tracked equipment that would facilitate removal
  of the biomass from the landscape. Skid or access
  trails may be needed in these units to facilitate
  removal of biomass. On slopes greater than 35,
  the thinning and associated treatments would be
  implemented by hand.

• Desired Outcome
• The desired tree spacing along the road and in
  the WUI is 20-30 feet between trees. Beyond the
  400 in the evacuation routes in fuel breaks,
  trees would be denser at about 15-20 between
  trees. An estimated 40-50 of the total trees
  in a stand would be removed. In units with bark
  beetle concerns spacing would be about 30-40 feet
  between trees.
• The desired tree spacing for this treatment is
  the same as described above. In addition, in
  some units the current stand condition is not
  suitable for thinning. In these units the
  overall stand density would be reduced by about
  40 by creating small openings between 1/3 to 5
  acres. This prescription would be implemented
  primarily in units where trees less than 6 inches
  in diameter are the target for removal.

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Activities and Desired Outcome
Aspen Management Maintenance of Low Fire Risk
Areas
Desired Outcomes

• Prescribed burning Remove conifers within and
  about 1 ½ tree lengths out from the clone.
  Monitor aspen sprouting response, and implement a
  broadcast burn to further stimulate sprouting if
  needed. In some other areas with relatively few
  trees, broadcast burn to maintain open areas.
• Activities may include but are not limited to
  thinning through logging, yarding unmerchantable
  material, piling, hauling of commercial material,
  slashing small trees, firewood removal, biomass
  reduction such as chipping, pile burning,
  broadcast burning, erosion control,
  rehabilitation of skid trails, landings and
  temporary roads.
• Biomass less than 6 in diameter may be removed
  mechanically for commercial purposes.
• An estimated 3.5-4.5 miles of temporary road
  would be needed to facilitate log removal in
  commercial thin units. Temporary roads would be
  used for implementation of the project, then
  closed. Rehabilitation includes erosion control,
  scarification and seeding. If needed, closure
  devices would be installed to eliminate future
  use

• Help reduce competition for sunlight and water
  and stimulate sprouting in aspen forest.
• Where the existing condition is open and has a
  low risk of severe fire,
• maintain as open areas.
• In all units, natural and activity related fuels,
  including boles, branches and tops would be
  reduced to 10-15 tons of woody material. Some
  large woody material would be left to meet the
  Forest Plan requirements for snags and downed
  woody material. (GNF Plan, 1987, Amendment 15).
• Biomass material is a by product of fuels
  reduction treatments. At this time there is not a
  market to facilitate biomass removal around West
  Yellowstone. The sale of biomass would utilize
  fuels and lessen the amount of pile burning
  required to achieve desired fuel conditions.
• The temporary roads would maintain skid distances
  of ¼ mile or less.
• Erosion control and revegetation protects site
  productivity and minimizes the introduction and
  spread of undesirable species.

Associated Implementation Activities
Temporary Road Needs
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Project Implementation
Full implementation of the project could take
5-10 years.

• Proposed activities could be accomplished with
  Forest Service crews, service contracts, timber
  sale contracts and/or stewardship contracting.
• Through stewardship contracting the value from
  the wood products removed and sold could be
  re-invested into the project area.
• The District will continue communication with
  private land owners and recreation residence
  owners of the importance of Firewise principles.
  Application of Firewise principles will help
  owners maintain defensible space around their
  property and reduce structure ignitability.

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Wildland Urban Interface
Treatment units proposed within the WUI extend
approximately ½ mile from the structures. The
distance is based on fire behavior modeling. The
model estimated that firebrands from expected
crown fire may be lofted and carried up to ½ mile
away given the existing fuel conditions.
The risk of sustained crown fire is high in and
adjacent to much of the WUI in the project areas.
Surface and ladder fuels are conducive to intense
fire with torching that pushes a fire from the
ground to the tree crowns. Crown canopy fuels
are continuous and lend themselves to fire
spread from crown to crown for long distances
and are likely to produce lofting firebrands.
Lonesome Hurst Summer Homes
Private homes adjacent to NFS land along Denny
Creek Road
Continuity of surface, ladder and crown fuels
would be reduced, resulting in elevated canopy
base height and reduced fuel continuity in all
fuel strata or layers (surface, ladder and
crown). The changed condition would lower the
fire intensities and result in a change to
predicated fire type from crown fire to surface
fire.
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Evacuation Routes
The Denny Creek Road provides the only road
access to the west shore of the lake and is the
primary evacuation route. The route is narrow,
with heavy forest fuel accumulations immediately
adjacent to the road. Expected flame length and
fire intensity is high along the route.
Additionally, intense crown fires can generate
very high winds, which may preclude evacuations
by water.
Denny Creek Road
Treatment units addressing evacuation routes are
limited to approximately 400 feet either side of
the roadway. Fire intensity and flame length
would be reduced immediately adjacent to the
roadway to allow safe ingress or egress. The
Incident Response Pocket Guide and computer fire
prediction models were used for guidance to
derive the proposed distance.
Access road near Clark Springs Summer Homes
Access road for Romset Summer Homes
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Fuel Breaks
To improve the effectiveness of fuel treatment in
the WUI and evacuation routes, strategic fuel
breaks would be created.
Propose unit 7 just above Denny Creek Road
Within the project area, there are extensive
areas of difficult terrain with dense forest.
These are important to treat, however the
treatments, consisting of hand-sawing and
piling, would be expensive. To offset the cost
of this work, some adjacent areas on gentler
ground, that have larger trees (over 6 inches in
diameter), would be thinned.
Similar stand conditions to fuel break area in
proposed unit 26 above the Denny Creek Rd.

• The thinning would improve the
  effectiveness of the hand treatments, while
  providing some revenue to offset the cost of hand
  treatments. In these areas, continuity of
  surface, ladder and crown fuels would be reduced,
  resulting in elevated canopy base height and
  reduced fuel continuity in all fuel strata or
  layers (surface, ladder and crown). The changed
  condition would lower fire intensities and reduce
  the chance of crown fire.

Proposed fuel break area above in unit 17 upslope
of 16.
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Aspen Management Maintenance of Low Fire Risk
Areas

• Aspen stands are being encroached by conifers
• of various age classes leading to a decline in
  aspen populations across the west. Aspen is also
  a valued wildlife habitat component, and a
  fire-resistant forest type.

Conifer removal and/or prescribed burning is
intended to reinvigorate aspen clones in the
project area.
Conifer encroachment in proposed unit 31.
Maintain a low risk fire area and stimulate aspen
in proposed unit 18.
Aspen regeneration surrounded by conifers in
proposed unit 29
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Forest Health
In areas where there are compelling reasons to
manage fuels or aspen, prescriptions would be
designed to help prevent mortality from insects
or disease, while meeting fuels and aspen
objectives.
When thinning this fuel break we propose to also
reduce the susceptibility of this stand to
mountain pine beetle. The white spots on the
tree trunk show active beetle hits.
Douglas Fir beetle mortality just north of
proposed units 31 and 32.
In recent years Douglas fir bark beetle have
killed a large percentage of the mature Douglas
fir trees in many of the drainages along the
shores of Hebgen Lake.
Opening the forest canopy through thinning has
been shown to reduce susceptibility of Douglas
Fir trees to bark beetle mortality. A similar
strategy is proposed in lodge pole pine forest
areas with recent mountain pine beetle attacks.
In stands with dwarf mistletoe infection, removal
of severely infected trees would improve the
health of the small trees and future
regeneration.
When treating this stand for ladder fuels we
propose to also remove the severely dwarf
mistletoe infected trees to improve the forest
health of regeneration.
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Desired Outcomes
This Douglas Fir forest was thinned to a similar
spacing as proposed in this project.
Prescribed burning in aspen clones can be used to
promote this type of aspen re-growth.
These fuel treatments in lodgepole pine are
similar to what we are proposing in this project.
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Camp 32 Fire Kootenai National Forest
This area was thinned to reduce fuels low and
mixed severity SURFACE FIRE burned through the
area.
No fuel treatment was implemented here. CROWN
FIRE burned severely and replaced the stand.
Desired Outcome
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Existing Condition in Proposed Units 1 - 12
Heavy Fuels Along Evacuation Route
The evacuation route near Clark Springs.
Heavy fuels along the Denny Creek Road evacuation
route in units 6 -12
Heavy fuel loading next to evacuation route and
proposed fuel break near units 7-12.
Steep ground with dense fuels in WUI near Clark
Springs.
Forest area shows the very north and west end of
unit 17 from private land.
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Existing Condition in Proposed Units 17-23
Unit 21 looking into proposed Evacuation Route
treatment area
Unit 21 looking into proposed Evacuation Route
treatment area
Unit 17 in proposed Fuel Break
Unit 23 WUI area adjacent to Rumbaugh Homes
Unit 17 in proposed Evacuation Route area
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Existing Condition in Proposed Units 26-32
Ladder Fuels and Suppressed Aspen Adjacent to
Lonesomehurst Homes in Unit 29.
Along the Evacuation Route in Proposed Unit 26.
Unit 31 Conifer Encroachment in Aspen and
Douglas-fir Forest that is Susceptible to Douglas
Fir Bark Beetle Mortality due to Adjacent
Infestation.
Looking Out From Romset Homes to Proposed Unit
26. Denny Creek Rd. Crosses Through the Area
Just Above the Lower Trees.
Dense Vegetation Along the Proposed Evacuation
Route Area in Proposed Unit 26.
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Preliminary Issues/Concerns
For more information

• Bill Queen, District Ranger
• (406)-823-6961 or
• Teri Seth, NEPA Team Leader (406)-522-2520.
• Gallatin Forest Webpage http//www.fs.fed.us/r1/ga
  llatin/?pageprojects Check the website for more
  details on the scoping process and for additional
  maps.
• Thank you for taking an interest in your national
  forest.

• Include but are not limited to
• Moose Winter Range the lakeshore provides key
  habitat.
• Portions of units 1, 2, 13, 14 and 15 are within
  the Inventoried Roadless boundary. However, the
  area in and around units 13, 14, and 15 is
  heavily impacted from roads and past management.
• Scenery