Healing the land

A hundred years from now, the forest south of Sundance may look just the way it used to.

The Fish Fire burned through just under 6800 acres back in 2022, leaving blackened scars in its wake.

Left to its own devices, the land would likely take multiples of that timespan to heal those wounds, but the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) was on site last week to offer a helping hand.

Along with a contracted crew of planters, Forest stewards arrived with boxes of foot-high seedlings to take advantage of a two-week window during which conditions are ripe for success. Though the tiny trees were born in Nebraska's Bessey Nursery, they were grown from local seeds.

Ponderosa pine take 60 to 80 years to reach maturity and start producing viable seeds.

"If we didn't replant, it could take hundreds of years for those trees to have their seed come here [because] their seed will only spread about 150 feet away from the tree," says John McNealy, Silviculture Forester for the Bearlodge Ranger District.

"If you were to walk around in here, you'd find spots where the soil is just completely black. In those areas, the seed source has been pretty much totally neutralized and so those areas will not regrow naturally. That's one of the reasons we're doing this planting."

The three-day process saw 45,000 seedlings placed in the ground over a 150-acre area. Winter made a late-season appearance as the crew got to work, but the snowfall was a welcome sight.

"These guys like it when it's a little cooler weather. They're working really hard and it keeps them cool to be able to have some snow," says McNealy.

"The moisture is actually really good for the trees as well. It gives them a really good start to life here."

Little has changed at the site of the fire since it was brought under control.

"We very quickly did a salvage treatment here to make sure we utilized all of the wood that we could. We would go and chop down the burned trees and use what was salvageable, so that way as little was wasted as possible," McNealy says.

"The place that has been burned has not really seen any harvesting activity since the salvage sale, just because there are not many trees left. Even the baby trees have all been nuked and burned – we lost all of the regeneration that would have been here, so this place is getting a complete fresh start."

The biggest step to success is the planting, says McNealy, who has great respect for the speed and efficiency of the contractor, OC Forestry of Oregon. One of the few crews that doesn't mind the snow because it makes it harder to see the rocks, McNealy says, "these guys will work whether it's rain, sun or snow."

The crew barely stops moving, split into two groups. The first moves along a grid to prepare the soil with a hoedad blade and settle each seedling into its hole.

"They're on a ten foot by ten foot spacing. That gives them room to grow and not have to compete with each other as they're coming up," says McNealy of the grid.

"In a way, the fire was beneficial in that regard because it takes away a lot of the competing vegetation. The trees don't have much to compete with in terms of resources like water and light, and so they have a pretty good start to life even if the soil is a little rough. Here in the Bearlodge we have very good soil, the planters are really enjoying working here because they say it's very good soil and they're getting the trees in very quickly."

A second crew follows behind to place a tube over the new tree.

"[The tube is] a protectant made out of a biodegradable material that will protect the baby seedlings from elk or rodents. The elk like to come and just rip them out of the ground," says McNealy.

"These little ones don't stand much of a chance to an elk, which is why we want to get those protectors on them and give them the best chance they have to survive."

There's a limited annual window to schedule these plantings.

"It's about 16 days out of the year due to weather conditions and soil conditions. They can't plant when the soil is frozen, but they can't plant when it's too hot or dry," McNealy says.

"Each guy will plant roughly 1000 to 1500 trees every day. Combined, their whole crew is about ten folks and they'll plant 15,000 trees every day."

It's not a cheap project, McNealy says, but it's worth the investment to bring the Forest back to the way it was before the fire.

"We plan to do subsequent planting in the next several years – it's a very large effort. The Fish Fire was over 6000 acres and we're getting 150 acres this year," he says.

"It's going to take a lot of years to finish the entire project, but we do plan also to ramp up production. This is sort of a test year in a way, to see how viable our soil is and the survival of the trees."

The team is anticipating success. On the Custer side of the Forest, where a planting is also taking place, survivability is estimated at over 90%.

"We're using pretty much the same trees, so we would expect something very similar, but it's very dependent on the weather and if the elk and rats get to them," McNealy says.

"We get a decent amount of moisture in the Bearlodge and so these guys are going to have a good start."