Cabinet RD hosts forest project tour

The Cabinet Ranger District, including District Ranger Michael Feiger and district staff, hosted a well-attended field trip on September 19 for an upcoming forest project in the Tuscor Creek area, about 5 miles west of Trout Creek. The district is seeking public input as they develop the project.

Participants included landowners with nearby properties, representatives of timber and conservation groups, and several members of the Kootenai Forest Stakeholders Collaborative (KFSC). The collaborative was formed to include diverse perspectives (landowner, industry, conservation, and agency personnel) in planning efforts, and has supported several successful forest projects on the Cabinet Ranger District over the past decade. The trip format provided stops to view forest conditions at several locations in the project area.

The Cabinet Ranger District is covered with dense timber stands that grew up after the area burned extensively during the 1910 fires. Since then, fire suppression efforts have mostly prevented the natural disturbances that historically would have provided more open and diverse forest landscapes.

The proposed project area lies within the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), where residential and other private land values are present and adjacent to forest lands and possible treatment areas. Cabinet Ranger District Silviculturist, Jon Colby, pointed out specific stand conditions and the potential treatments tailored to meet project goals, which include reducing fuels and wildfire risk, improving stand conditions and resiliency by increasing species diversity and reducing stand densities. Colby discussed existing stand conditions, risks of disturbance due to insects and disease, and what desired forest stand conditions would look like in the proposed project area. Feiger noted that treatment actions will “simulate natural disturbances in areas that have not been disturbed for a long time.”