Fuels reduction amidst climate change

Wildfire seasons are becoming longer and more destructive. The 2021 fire season in Oregon began in May, a month early, due to drought conditions resulting in low fuel moistures and a light snow pack. Typically, fire seasons come to a close in mid to late fall when we see our first snows. As climate change impacts regional weather, we are seeing devastating events like those in Superior and Louisville, Colorado, where 30,000 homes were evacuated on Dec. 30 , 2021 due to a wind-driven wildfire. These catastrophic wildfires in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains give us an idea of what may become the new normal as we face a changing climate.

The Rice Ridge fire in 2017 was surely a wake-up call for the Seeley Lake community and has raised landowners' awareness of the risks of wildfire and the benefits of preventative measures.

The Seeley-Swan Fire Plan outlines several strategies to reduce wildfire impacts in the Seeley Lake area as we work to adapt to a changing climate and the increasing threat of fires in our wildland urban interface. Among those strategies are fuels reduction and prescribed fire.

Fuels reduction decreases the amount of flammable vegetation available to a wildfire. In the wildland urban interface (WUI), where many of us live, reducing fuel loading can make a significant impact on a structure's survivability in the event of a fire. Preventative fuels mitigation measures also give fire personnel a fighting chance of containing or even pushing back wildfires that occur in the WUI.

The Clearwater Resource Council is working to connect landowners with grant funding for fuels reduction projects and providing educational resources for the community. We are seeing more landowners take initiative to mitigate wildfires on their private properties and protect their homes by utilizing the resources available through CRC - specifically grant funding for thinning projects and implementing Firewise policies.

The Big Sky Lake Fuels Reduction Project serves as an example of such a stewardship effort. The project began in December 2020 and now includes over 40 landowner participants with a shared goal of creating defensible space around their properties. At the conclusion of this project, 2/3 of the properties on Big Sky Lake will have had some form of fuels mitigation work completed.

It is CRC's hope to continue facilitating these landscape-sized projects in the Seeley Lake community by partnering with other homeowner associations. If you are interested in fuels reduction work within the greater Seeley Lake area or would like more information on the resources available to you, please reach out to CRC's community forester Ryan Bell at commforester@crcmt.org.