HELENA, Mont. - Scrubby, sagebrush landscapes on public lands in Montana and throughout the West are being seen in a new way, with the Bureau of Land Management unveiling plans on how those public lands will be treated.
More than half of all sagebrush lands have been lost, said Ken Rait, public lands director at The Pew Charitable Trusts, so the conservation components in the plans will keep habitat strong for big game and birds, keep them open for hunting and other recreation, and allow for development and grazing.
"The Records of Decision that the Bureau of Land Management have come out with are a significant step in bringing a responsible balance to development across the West and conservation of the sage-grouse," he said.
The plans are part of the reason the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided the greater sage-grouse would not be listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Matt Holloran, chief scientist for Wildlife Management Research Support, said this is the largest conservation program ever undertaken by the BLM - but the plans aren't the end of the story.
"For this effort to succeed as it's been planned, I mean, all we have now are plans," he said, "and for the success to happen, the plans need to be implemented."
There are 98 separate plans covering 10 states, each one crafted based on local input.
Plan details are online at blm.gov.
Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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State and federal agencies are collaborating to increase the use of prescribed fires in the Northwest.
Prescribed fire is the controlled use of burns to minimize the larger risks of wildfires and smoke. It is seen as an increasingly important strategy as wildfire seasons pose greater threats to the Northwest.
Casey Sixkiller, Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said authorities want to work together to maintain forest habitats.
"Prescribed burn is one of the best tools we have for making our forests more resilient against catastrophic wildfires and they help to manage and target hazardous fuels and make for healthier forests," Sixkiller explained.
Sixkiller pointed out the EPA is involved because wildfire smoke poses risks to people's health. The collaboration is between federal agencies, departments in Oregon and Washington, and tribal governments.
Sixkiller noted the collaboration needed a formal agreement to move forward.
"That is what we've been able to do here with this agreement," Sixkiller emphasized. "To get federal land managers and states and us all in the same room, making sure that we're all on the same page about what success looks like."
Sixkiller added the collaboration has another advantage: It helps drive engagement with communities potentially in the path of prescribed burns.
"They have the confidence that the effort that's gone into planning that activity has been thought out from soup to nuts," Sixkiller acknowledged. "And that they have a seat at the table and are being engaged and their concerns are being addressed as we go forward with that activity."
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A new study in the journal Nature Communications by Montana researchers said suppressing small wildfires is leading to larger, more intense and damaging blazes.
According to the U.S. Forest Service, about 98% of wildfires are fully suppressed before they grow to 100 acres; most of them within 72 hours. In Montana, the latest data show crews kept 95% of wildfires in Montana to no more than 10 acres in 2022.
Mark Kreider, a doctoral candidate in forest and conservation science at the University of Montana and co-author of the report, said the strategy leads to what is known as fire "suppression bias."
"Removing more of one type of fire than the other, what we're left with is bias towards the higher intensity fires, these more extreme fires," Kreider explained.
Montana state policy calls for crews to extinguish fires as quickly as possible, even small ones. Kreider pointed out researchers recommend letting low-intensity fires burn where possible to reduce the risk and damage potential for larger, hotter-burning and more catastrophic blazes.
Kreider acknowledged as the population grows along the urban-wildland interface, letting fires burn is not always possible, but argued it might be the best strategy for heading off catastrophic fires later.
"Especially in the western U.S. where people live close to forests, fire suppression is very important and we still must do it," Kreider noted. "But this research helps to show when possible in places where it's safe to do so, we really may benefit from allowing more low and moderate intensity fire to burn."
The National Interagency Fire Center said the number of acres scorched by wildfire has doubled since the 1980s, and the cost to battle the fires has risen to nearly $3 billion a year.
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The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has awarded $3.1 million for 13 projects to reduce wildfire risk to communities and improve forest health.
The funding money is part of the $15 million Montana Forest Action Plan, which takes a big-picture approach to reducing the risk of wildfires.
Wyatt Frampton, deputy division administrator of forestry and trust lands for the Montana Department of Natural Resources, said the money will be used to foster fire-management cooperation between state and private landowners across 3,200 acres of forest.
"Through a variety of activities, such as prescribed fire, logging, mechanical thinning, hand activities as well as tree planting," Frampton outlined.
The 13 most recent restoration projects are spread across the state, including in Lewis and Clark County, the Bitterroot and the South Swan Valley.
Frampton said the DNR is aiming to create a cohesive fire-reduction plan across Montana's landscape, which has until now been inconsistent because of different sets of land-management practices.
"Right now when we see a patchwork of treatments across some of the landscapes in the state, from a fire-management perspective, it doesn't create a clean or effective barrier for trying to stop the fire in that area," Frampton explained. "Where, if we had a cohesive landscape-level treatment, that would help."
Frampton added having a statewide cohesive fire-management plan would also allow the DNR and other agencies to slow the spread of potentially destructive insects in Montana's forests.
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