Strategic wildfire program offers economic opportunities

This past summer’s fires have been a harsh reminder of the large-scale fire hazard that exists in Montana. Already this year, hundreds of thousands of acres have burned and millions more are at risk. However, the core of the fire hazard problem is just one manifestation of a broader ecological decline that continues to threaten Montana’s forests.

By Charles E. Keegan III and Carl E. Fiedler In the Fall 2003 Missoulian Montana InBusiness

With summer activities cut short by smoke-filled days and mills closing because loggers are unable to work in the woods, reducing fire hazard and restoring ecological conditions are likely on the minds of many Montanans.

A comprehensive forest restoration/fuel-reduction program developed by the University of Montana’s School of Forestry and Bureau of Business and Economic Research offers some solutions. If adopted, the proposed treatment program would reduce fire hazard, promote large-tree development and offer economic opportunities. Some of the potential economic benefits include increased employment, revenue to landowners and a chance to reinvigorate the state’s forest-products industry – an industry that has been reeling from a severely diminished federal timber program and, in recent years, from low product prices.

The treatment program – developed after extensive statewide analyses – aims at creating stand conditions similar to those that were common in fire-adapted forests before fire exclusion and high-grade logging. This comprehensive approach focuses on the primary ecological problems found in many stands including:

Excessive stand density that stifles tree growth and resistance to insects and disease,
A shift in stand structure from moderately open conditions dominated by larger trees – most commonly ponderosa pine – to crowded stands that are dense and contain a ladder-like structure of trees, allowing fire to torch the crowns of even the largest trees,
A transition in species composition from dominance by fire-resistant ponderosa pine to more shade-tolerant (and less fire- and disease-resistant) firs that have flourished in the absence of surface fires.

A major goal of the treatment program is to protect and enhance large-diameter trees, especially ponderosa pine. Addressing all ecological problems would require removing trees across a wide size range, with most of the volume and value derived from 10-to-20-inch diameter Douglas-fir that developed with the exclusion of fire.

Because many of these trees have commercial value, the proposed treatment program would yield expected net revenue averaging about $175 per acre treated even under relatively weak lumber markets. Under stronger markets similar to the late 1990s, net revenue would average over $600 per acre.

The treatment approach is applicable to about 6 million acres in Montana, although to maintain a diverse landscape, not every acre would be treated. And on some acres, the timber removed as a byproduct of treatment would not pay treatment costs.

A conservative treatment regime, dealing with only 1 percent of the 6 million acres annually, would produce substantial volumes of commercial timber as a by-product – equivalent to more than 40 percent of Montana’s average annual commercial-timber harvest. Performing the treatments and processing the timber – under the 1 percent scenario – would employ more than 3,000 workers earning about $100 million annually in labor income, with total revenue to landowners ranging from $10 million to $90 million annually.

In addition to restoring more sustainable conditions in Montana’s forests, a strategic fire-hazard reduction program could also serve as an engine for sustainable economic development.

Charles E. Keegan III is director of forest industry research at the University of Montana-Missoula Bureau of Business and Economic Research http://www.bber.umt.edu/index.htm and Carl E. Fiedler is research associate professor at UM’s College of Forestry and Conservation http://www.forestry.umt.edu/ .

Copyright 2003
Missoulian.com

http://www.mtinbusiness.com/current/numbers.html