KALISPELL — It appears Montana's 2023 wildfire season is winding down following weeks of cooler temperatures and several days of rain showers.
But according to the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC), that's only after more than 1,500 fires were reported across our state this year that have burned over 116,000 acres so far.
Now, prescribed burns will begin as the weather cooperates.
“Well, we are in a fire-adapted community. The fire is good for the land it promotes brush growth, forage for the wildlife, reduces the small trees that are coming underneath the large canopy. And once we can reduce those smaller trees, fire stands less of a chance to be able to get up into the canopies and create crown fires,“ said Flathead National Forest Fire and Fuels Specialist Toby Thompson.
The main goal of prescribed burns is to eliminate fuels that can cause wildfires to get out of hand.
“Eventually these [Douglas] firs will start coming in underneath and then there'll be just a carpet of them. That's what causes the problem, ladder fuels. Removing the ladder fuels is the name of the game,” Thompson explained.
The ash from the fires creates nutrient-rich soil and promotes the growth of foliage that is necessary for animals.
“You know once the mountain maple gets to certain heights the deer in the can't get to it kind of gets decadent. But here [in the burn] this is all good. This is food for the animals and this is what we're trying to do,” said Thompson.
We are just coming out of fire season and intentionally lighting a fire sounds risky, but the U.S. Forest Service takes an abundance of precautions to make sure all goes according to plan.
“There's always risks but each of our prescribed fires has a plan. In that plan, we spell out what we're doing, why we're doing it, what the objectives are, what parameters we need to be in, what weather conditions we're looking at, a whole list of things," Thompson told MTN News. "We try and take out as much of that risk as we possibly can. But you know, we are dealing with fire. There's always a risk."
Prescribed burns are scheduled to begin this week in the Flathead and Swan valleys and people can expect to see some smoke. You can go to the Flathead National Forest Facebook page to find out the location of the scheduled burns.
