BLM reintroduces fire in Wales Creek Wilderness Study Area

The Bureau of Land Management Missoula Field Office completed a 660 acre prescribed burn near Chamberlain Mountain in the Wales Creek Wilderness Study Area, nine miles southeast of Clearwater Junction Thursday, Sept. 5. This project has been planned since 2016. BLM Fire Management Specialist Steve Hancock said everything lined up perfectly to complete the stand-replacing burn.

The project area was 1,000 acres within a wilderness study area. There were no roads in the area so natural barriers were used to contain the fire. The unit was above 6,500 feet and is designated as a special lynx habitat management area.

"The area is just a lot of heavy and downed logs that haven't burned in a long time," said Burn Boss Karl Nikoleyczik.

Hancock said the resource objectives for the unit included restoring and enhancing natural disturbance processes by reintroducing fire into the ecosystem. The BLM wanted to use fire to create patches within the continuous lodgepole overstory to create a stand initiation structure to diversify habitat for Canada Lynx, grizzly bear, moose and elk. The BLM received funding from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to help improve elk habitat.

Another objective that the BLM had was to reduce the risk and consequences of severe wildfire in the future either within the burn area or outside of it. Hancock said that should a wildfire become established in the wilderness study area in the future, they would have more fire management options. If a wildfire were established outside of the study area, then they could possibly use this burn to keep fire out of the area in the future.

Specific prescribed fire objectives were to reduce surface fuel loading by 50-75 percent; reduce the lodgepole pine canopy coverage by 50-80 percent and consume 50-75 percent of the understory shrubs and forbs within the unit.

"All of our objectives, both the resource and the prescribed fire objectives were all met as far as we know at this time," said Hancock.

Firefighters from the BLM, United States Forest Service and Montana Department of Natural Resource Conservation were involved in the operations. Two helicopters, one running a helitorch and the other with a plastic sphere dispenser, ignited the burn aerially.

"We knew that the fire danger was still high and it was hot and dry but we also knew what was coming which was a significant amount of moisture," said Hancock. "That is why we decided to light the unit when we did, we were right in the middle of our prescription window and we had very high confidence that significant precipitation and significant cooling and wetting weather was on its way. That is exactly what happened."

The ignition pattern was intentional. The way it was lit controlled the direction of the fire spread and kept the smoke column going straight up.

"That was on purpose," said Hancock. "I did that so the fire wouldn't move outside the smoke plume. It didn't."

Hancock said they didn't have any spotting and Nikoleyczik said they were never out of prescription throughout the burn period.

"From miles away it looked like a huge giant wildfire where the column stood straight up. But it burned nice and calm and that is what they wanted it to do," said Nikoleyczik.

The unit has received more than two inches of rain since Thursday's burn. Hancock thanked the National Weather Service for their assistance in making that determination. He also thanked the other fire management organizations for helping them pick the burn window.

"We would not have even thought about doing this without the winds and air temperatures being what they were and then the system that came in that night and this weekend behind it," said Nikoleyczik. "It was just perfect because we couldn't have done it without it. We didn't want to be chasing it all fall."

Hancock said this burn was a good gauge for the BLM to see if they could do more large-scale burns like that in the future.

"It is not very often that you actually get everything lined up just perfectly in order to be able to pull something like this off," said Hancock. "This is the fourth year that we have been trying to find an opportunity to accomplish this project and we were finally able to find a day to do it. Everything worked out just as we had planned. We are looking at it as a success."

The BLM hopes to burn a few more harvest units that are 15-30 acres outside of the wilderness study area and they have a few more units in the Ninemile Prairie area as well. However the moisture may have closed the burn window.

For more information please contact Hancock at the Missoula Field Office, phone 406-329-3869.