Public hearings held to update local fire plans

A new assessment of wildfire risks and protections is one step closer to completion after the Lincoln County Firesafe Council received comments from the community.

It will now prepare a final plan for Lincoln County Commissioners to approve, according to Lincoln County Forester Jennifer Nelson.

The 2023 Lincoln County Community Wildfire Protection Plan was formed by the non-profit’s collaboration with different stakeholder groups. Nelson then presented the Lincoln County Commissioners with the plan in Libby on March 30 as she had done in Eureka the week before.

The public hearings in Libby and Eureka will incorporate comments from the community into the plan and hopefully the commissioners can vote on the final plan early in April, Nelson said.

The core team of planners for the Lincoln County Community Wildfire Protection Plan include Logan Sandman with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC), Jacob Jeresek with the U.S. Forest Service, Libby Volunteer Fire Chief Steve Lauer, Tom Lane with county Emergency Management and Commissioner Brent Teske.

The Community Wildfire Protection Plan started in 2000 when 6.8 million acres burned in the U.S. and nearly 25,000 of those acres were in the Kootenai.

The protection plan came out of the need for a list of all the communities that are close to federal lands and are at high risk for wildfire, Nelson said.

“Not only is a CWPP important for determining areas for fuel treatments on federal lands near our communities, but it is also an important document for when we are applying for grants,” Nelson said.

The goals of the plan are to provide for the safety of residents, limit the number of values at risk, promote and maintain ecosystems and educate citizens on wildfire prevention, Nelson said.

In 2001, the state of Montana found that every city and town in Lincoln County ended up on the community risk list, as well as the communities of old river corridor, Highway 93 corridor, Tobacco Valley, West Kootenai and the Yaak, Nelson said.

Counties can do some of the work to address forest health themselves as long as they are collaborating with state and federal agencies, Nelson said. This started in 2003 with the Healthy Forests Restoration Act.

In addition to other forest health considerations the plan takes into account changes in wildfires driven by climate change.

“In general, spring is arriving earlier, resulting in earlier snowmelt each year. This creates longer periods in which fuels are dry and primed to burn. Lighter snowpacks, higher summer temperatures and lower humidity all contribute to drier conditions in which fuels are more likely to burn,” the CWPP said.

Significant differences between the newest plan and older renditions includes parcel based mapping, buffering of new development and expanded priority for structure designations.

In the new plan, the division of the county into geographic areas and the use of current State of Montana assessments have been integrated into the plan, Nelson said.

An example of new development is what was previously industrial forest lands around the Thompson Chain of Lakes area, but has been sold as real estate and subdivided. This had to be taken into consideration under the new plan, Nelson said.

The FireSafe Council will lead efforts to accomplish work in the priority focus areas identified in the plan and using the plan’s roadmap concept and making project recommendations to the appropriate agencies, the plan states.

To understand wildfire risk to Lincoln County communities, the project team developed a nationally consistent risk dataset with funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the report stated.

There are two variables taken into account when measuring risk. The risk to homes and wildfire hazard potential and from wildfire risk to communities, the report said. In the report, Lincoln County is divided into five geographic areas (GAs) in the CWPP.

For the Cabinet Geographic Area, the top three priority areas are to the west of Libby, the Lower Granite and Cherry Creek to the south of Libby and the area around the W.R. Grace mine, Nelson said.

The three top priority areas found in the Tobacco Geographic Area were the old highway corridor, Glen Lake and the Trego-Dickie Lake area, Nelson said.

“A lot of work is being done there and there’s a lot more work that needs to be done,” Nelson said of the Trego area.

In the questions and comments section of the meeting there were several in the audience that congratulated the CWPP team on their undertaking.

“The plan really has the data behind it and the collaborative process that is required,” DNRC's Steve Kimball said.

Kimball mentioned that the commissioners and CWPP team could work together more on documenting emergency situations.

Kootenai National Forest's Dan Rose said the CWPP identifying the priority areas was going to help organizations work in the future.

“There’s a lot of things that really don’t cost a lot that are really important for homeowners to do around their home. Look for things that could ignite with embers,” Kimball said. “I think if you put a little section in there with a diagram that really highlights that homeowner responsibility.”