Clancy Fuel and Bug Pile Removal

 

1. Name - Clancy Fuel and Bug Pile Removal

Context | Objectives | Treatment Specifics | Utilization | Targets | Pre Treatment data | Post Treatment data | Links 

This project removed and utilized materials that were formerly considered to be forest waste. It reduced the fuel load in the WUI project area by over 4,000 tons on 680 acres (5.9 tons per acre), without the risk of fire escape or air-shed concerns. Fire escape and smoke issues both severely limited the prescribed burn windows and substantially raised costs of the prescribed fire. The project also significantly reduced the risk that live ponderosa pine would be attacked by the bark beetles that infested the slash piles from a previous harvest.

Large piles of pine debris and slash were created in the Clancy-Unionville Forest/Fuel Treatment Project. These piles were scheduled for burning over the next several years. However, mild winters and drought  resulted in conditions conducive to insect pests, and pine engraver bark beetles (Ips pini) infested the piles. The insects were expected to attack live trees during the summer of 2005 unless the piles were disposed of prior to June. This project used private contractors to grind and remove the material for utilization as hog fuel for power generation.

The harvesting of 1.6 million board feet from 680 acres, with an additional 200 acres of mechanical fuels reduction and 4,150 tons of biomass removal work, was completed by 2007. The first biomass contractor ground the woody slash material, but was unable to remove it, so a second contractor was brought in to load and remove the material the following fall and winter. Approximately 20% of residues were left in piles for later burning. These were comprised of needles, litter, and small branches with little potential for containing bark beetles. Some of the prescribed burning and temporary road rehabilitation has been completed, but some still remains to be completed and is scheduled for the next two years.

Utilization of slash in this fashion is a new process around Helena. Because biomass utilization is uncommon in the area, this portion of the overall restoration project has not gone as smoothly as other facets. Although the material on the ground is of very low value, there is local interest in developing the process and utilizing the forest residues from treatment area. This project may lead to more biomass utilization on other forest/fuel projects, reducing the need to use burning in the Helena Valley.

Background
The Clancy-Unionville project area comprised 40,000 acres of National Forest (NF) Lands managed by the Helena Ranger District and 5,000 acres managed by the Butte Field Office (FO). The area is just south of Helena, Montana, on the east side of the Continental Divide. Many of the NF and BLM lands were intermingled within a mosaic of urban interface woodlands, that contain a large number of houses either situated individually or clustered into subdivisions and cottage communities. Vegetation was conifer forest, with meadows and grassy, open woodland on south-facing hillsides. The forest was generally unstable and lacking in diversity, with conifer encroachment occurring in many meadow areas. According to local fire departments, the vegetation posed a catastrophic fire hazard to adjacent homes and subdivisions. In addition, the area contained hundreds of miles of roads and trails created by mining, logging, homesteading, off-road vehicle use, and wood gathering. These roads were used by a variety of recreationists.

The area had seen substantial and large-scale changes in the forests during and since settlement. These changes had a wide range of effects on the species and ecological systems found in the landscape. The successful elimination of fire as an ecological component had resulted in unstable forest stands, decreasing productivity, and unnaturally high concentrations of fuel, which continued to build. Vegetative health was declining, with increasing levels of insect damage and mortality. The risk of high-intensity wildfire was growing and was potentially the next large-scale natural event. Such a fire would be accompanied by many of the associated negative effects on natural resources and manmade features seen in the Cave Gulch and Bucksnort Fires east of Helena in 2000.

A mixed-agency team of resource specialists gathered field data and information through intensive public participation and prepared an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the project proposal. The original Clancy treatment proposals received a high level of cooperation/collaboraion with the Helena National Forest and others during development of the Clancy-Unionville EIS and Record of Decision.

The BLM Record of Decision on the Clancy-Unionville Vegetation Manipulation Project, which was issued on October 31, 2000, was implemented by splitting the prescribed treatments into two types of forest management projects: the Clancy Forest Treatment Timber Sale and the Clancy Vegetative Thinning/Fuel Reduction Project. Implementation of the Clancy decision by the BLM was delayed as a result of intense, three-year forest stabilization, salvage, rehabilitation, and restoration efforts to mitigate the heavy resource damage on public lands in the Helena area caused by the wildfires of 2000.

A notice of implementation of these projects was published in the Helena Independent Record on August 26, 2003, followed by several newspaper articles in the following weeks. There was strong public interest in this area, particularly from the local residents. On numerous occasions over from 1997 through 2000, public comments were requested through letters, press releases, public meetings, field trips, and public review of draft documents. Several protests were received by the BLM, although none from local residents. These protest were denied in December 2003 and the projects were implemented.

Links

• Treatment Map