Fire and Forest Management

Post by 2022 student Ethan Van-Derpoel

The West has an entirely different way of doing just about everything. It seems like the openness of Big Sky Country combined with a self-reliant pioneer attitude are a couple of the main factors influencing the way that anything is done out here. Both wild and prescribed fires, and how people feel about them, are a prime example of this. We were lucky enough in our first few days to meet with several stakeholders in the area of the Bobcat wildfire. 

The first full day we were here we were lucky enough to be able to meet with Jeff and Dustin of Montana DNRC. They were a wealth knowledge regarding everything Montana and fire. One thing that was I think the most interesting was not what they said but how they said it. When they spoke of fires that were tens of thousands of acres blazing at once they said it with a kind of calmness that seemed to brush over the massive scale of something like that. If a fire that size where to break out on the East Coast, there would be an absolute frenzy. It’s like big fires are to Montanans what hurricanes are to Floridians. While asking them about how people around here felt about fire management practices like thinning or prescribed burns, they said that some people are very proactive in thinning and such while a lot of people only seemed to think about it when an active fire was headed their way. It seemed strange to me that anyone that invests so much living off the land would not put in the time to insure the longevity of that lifestyle. 

As much as the news makes it seems like fires in the West have no purpose other than destroying homes, livestock, and the earth, really being on the ground here showed that just wasn’t the whole story. Although destruction is a usual byproduct of a fire it is also a necessity. That dichotomy was clear when we met with the ranch owners, Pat and Goz, they mentioned several times, and with great enthusiasm, about how much more space and grassland they now have that they can graze their cattle on since the Bobcat fire thinned the woods. But in nearly the same breath they were on the verge of tearing up remembering how close they were to losing their house. Seeing and hearing them speak made me think of how there is such a delicate balance between the ecosystem needing fire and still being able to ranch cattle.

I don’t know much about cattle ranching in general but the way it is done here looks different than back in South Carolina. Cattle in South Carolina has a lot more visible structure, fences and paved roads, but while setting up our plots we were coming across cattle everywhere. The difference was made even more clear when speaking with Frosty Creek Ranch owners Terry and Lavonne. From what they told us about the fire was eye-opening. The fire came during calving season so being the outstanding ranchers they are they had to brave the smoke and fire on the horizon and go out to make sure that their calves made it to a safe place. Cattle-ranching is their livelihood and to see the personal risks that they make to work in this profession was awe-inspiring. They lost a couple of buildings and some equipment during the Bobcat fire, but much like I mentioned earlier about Pat and Goz, they were thrilled that so much land had finally opened up for grazing. Terry and Lavonne were very active in preventative fire and land management practices which helped save much of their land from being decimated. 

We have yet to meet a landowner or stakeholder here that was against thinning, but it is clear by looking at some properties that there are a few. But with the vastness of the landscape and the costs, both in terms of time and money, even if we were to educate landowners and land managers on the benefits of fire management it would be difficult to make enough adequate changes in the time before another large fire. It is going to take a community effort and some assistance from DNRC, fire departments, and other local government agencies to be able to stop something like this from happening again. I think that communication and transparency need to be improved out here as the first step. Everyone here is well aware of fire and that its effects can be mitigated but communication will lead to everyone as a whole creating a more sustainable lifestyle.