Corps Uses Logging and Fire to Enhance Habitat

Where there is smoke, there is fire............Friendly Fire!

Billowing clouds of smoke filled the skies above Dworshak Reservoir Oct. 24-25 as fire scorched about 600 acres of woodland underbrush in the Little Bay area near Orofino, Idaho.

And, that’s a good thing, said Dworshak natural resource personnel who helped fan the flames.
The controlled burn wrapped up a two-year project to restore healthy forest conditions at the Little Bay area to thin out trees and use a low-intensity prescribed burn to emulate the effects of natural wildfire.

Last year, Empire Lumber of Kamiah, Idaho, selectively thinned the Little Bay area near Canyon Creek, harvesting 2.5 million board feet of timber. Not considered a traditional forest thinning and logging job, loggers removed much of the smaller and less desirable species of timber rather than the large high-value trees.

“About 100 yards uphill from the reservoir edge into the thinned forest, you can see the number of large trees that were left behind – a vision of what the forest might have looked like had wildfire been part of the landscape over the last hundred years,” said Paul Pence, Dworshak natural resource manager.

Improving the forest health and wildlife habitat of the area created two by-products – lumber produced at a local mill and money. About $150,000 (revenue after all the work has been completed) will serve as seed money to perform similar stewardship projects around the reservoir in the future.

“Boaters on the lake are amazed when they learn that the Little Bay hillside has already been logged” said Pence. “A person in a boat can’t see the effects of the logging job from the lake. The sale layout was executed with great care to avoid visual disturbances of the hillside.”

Prior to logging, Dworshak natural resource personnel located existing osprey nests and protected them with by a 150-foot “no cut” radius surrounding each nesting site. Personnel also surveyed owl, woodpecker and goshawk use in order to monitor the change in wildlife as a result of the restoration actions.

Because of the rugged, sloping terrain and the fact that fire seeks to go uphill, Dworshak needed the adjacent landowners, Potlatch Corporation, Idaho Department of Lands and Reggear Tree Farms to conduct a burn on their land prior to the reservoir burn. Creating a “black line” (preburned area) on private land above Corps land greatly reduced the risk of escaped fire. It also effectively increased the amount of land actually receiving treatment and being improved. To help with the costs of the thinning and burning for adjacent landowners, Clearwater Potlatch Timber Protection Association submitted a grant to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and received $25,000.

Once logging was finished, a crew from CPTPA cleared a fire line down to bare mineral soil encompassing the projected burn area. Crews from CPTPA, assisted supported by Dworshak natural resource personnel, burned the slash piles at log landing sites, then used drip torches to ignite the burn area. A helicopter carrying a helitorch (a specially designed drip torch) dropped an ignited flammable jell-like substance over large areas aiding the ground crews.

“Approximately 600 acres involved in this controlled burn created a seed bed for the regeneration of tree and wildlife browse species,” said Russ Davis, wildlife biologist at Dworshak. “By imitating the effects of natural wildfire, a healthier forest will result, along with increased forage for elk and deer.”