Swan Valley Connections, a natural resource advocacy and education nonprofit based in Condon, was awarded just over $219,000 from Missoula County’s Department of Emergency Management as part of a federal grant the department was awarded in October. The funding was officially approved at a Missoula County Board of Commissioners meeting on Dec. 17.
The Community Wildfire Defense Grant was funded from money within the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed during the Biden Administration. Missoula County was awarded $4.8 million to spend over five years, and Swan Valley Connections is the primary sub-recipient.
Wildfire mitigation efforts, like fuel reduction treatments that this grant is intended to support, cross property lines and can be most effective if they’re done comprehensively, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior. But, the cost of these treatments has gone up in the past decades, particularly for those looking to treat their own property.
Luke Lamar, managing director of conservation and operations at SVC, said the nonprofit has been implementing various grant programs similar to the Community Wildfire Defense Grant since 2003. The funds are available to help offset landowner costs in scenarios where wood products don’t pay for the full contractor cost, Lamar said.
The goal, Lamar said, is to increase firefighter effectiveness and safety by acting productively before a wildfire inevitably occurs.
As an example, Lamar said one of the first things the Forest Service or firefighters do once a fire starts is put in shaded fuel brakes on major access roads. Lamar said it’s better to have those in place around homes initially as it can help reduce the potential for ladder fuels and crown fires, which are more difficult for firefighters to address.
“All that stuff done before a wildfire is way better than trying to do during a wildfire,” Lamar said.
With mills closing and contractor costs increasing, Max Rebholz, wildfire preparedness coordinator with Missoula County’s Department of Emergency Management, said fuel mitigation costs have gone up “fairly substantially” over the last 20 years. The funding is intended to provide an incentive to “increase the pace and scale of private lands being treated,” Rebholz said, creating a landscape where various types of land — public, private and within different types of ownership — can be prepared for wildfires.
“The goal of the grant is to create defensible space around structures, do forest thinning to increase resilience to fire, insects and disease (and) reduce vegetation along ingress and egress routes,” Rebholz said.
Out of the total, $150,000 is available for hazardous fuel reduction projects in the Swan watershed in Missoula County. The funding can pay for up to 75% of any associated contractor fees a project may require, Rebholz said.
“It’s a high fire risk up there obviously and we want to try to get as many landowners on board as possible,” Rebholz said.
With the remainder of the grant money, Missoula County will be hiring more personnel in wildfire-related departments, getting a chip truck and doing other private land wildfire mitigation projects in the Seeley Lake, Potomac and Bonner areas.
Rebholz said if landowners in the Seeley-Swan Valleys are interested in mitigation efforts for their properties, they can reach out to him at 406-880-8090 and mrebholz@missoulacounty.us to start the process. The Clearwater Resource Council in Seeley Lake can also assist with these needs.
People can also get in touch with Swan Valley Connections to begin treatments by calling 406-754-3137 or emailing mike@svconnections.org.
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