SEELEY LAKE - The Lolo National Forest has approved harvest of approximately 250 acres of the Liberty Fire that burned approximately 28,694 acres last summer. Of this, about 9,452 acres burned on National Forest System land on the Seeley Lake Ranger District.
“My decision allows salvage of approximately 2.5 million board feet of burned timber and planting of seedlings on 6,600 acres where the existing seed source is limited due to tree mortality,” said Tim Garcia, Forest Supervisor for the LNF.
The LNF expects to advertise one timber sale to implement the Liberty Fire Salvage project in the next few weeks. The sale will recover economic value to support local communities and offer logs to Montana’s forest products industry. In part, timber sale receipts will fund tree planting work in the burned area.
The analysis prepared for the project found no significant impacts associated with the proposed action. The majority of the project is located in an area allocated to timber management in the Lolo Forest Plan. Habitat for the threatened Canada lynx was avoided and streams were buffered to ensure protection of water quality and habitat for fish. The limited scope and scale of project activities are not expected to disrupt grizzly bear that may be present in the area.
For more information, contact the Seeley Lake Ranger District at 406-677-2233 or visit the LNF website: http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/lolo/landmanagement/projects.
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