County on board with prescribed burns

With the U.S. Forest Service planning to tackle fire danger through prescribed burns across the county in the near future, representatives approached the county commissioners last week to seek advice on reassuring the public of both the safety of and need for the fires.

Bearlodge Ranger District’s Patrick Champa, District Ranger, Chris Zoeller, Fire Management Officer N Zone, and Josh Hoffman, Fuels Assistant Fire Management Officer attended last week’s meeting of the commission to give an overview on two planned burns.

The South Slope and North Sand Projects both involve prescribed burns over 8000 acres of land. In the latter case, the territory in question is south of Beulah and 13 miles east of Sundance, while the former includes south-facing slopes across the whole district.

Both projects will aim to reduce fire hazard and improve the overall health of the forest.

The comment period recently closed for the South Slope project, said Champa, and plenty of good feedback was heard, “As well as the pretty typical feedback from people that aren’t in the state or in South Dakota.”

With the public interest so far, said Champa, a public Q&A session has been planned at Ranch A on May 22 at 6 p.m.

“With a lot of those local comments I thought more of a refined public engagement session,” he said.

Also with the public interest in mind, Zoeller asked the commission for their assistance in bringing residents on board with prescribed burns.

“We understand that there’s some concern with Crook County and the residents on prescribed fire,” he said.

In particular, he asked, people want to know, “How do we burn in our normal prescribed burn seasons when we are in a burn ban in Crook County?”

Commissioner Bob Latham stated that the commission does hear from concerned residents, but pointed out that the county has a cooperative agreement with the Forest Service when it comes to firefighting.

“If people have questions for us – ‘why in the heck is the Forest Service burning when there’s a fire ban on’ – we can say, we’re fully aware and we’re assisting them, because it needs to happen this way so we don’t have a Fish Fire,” he said.

Most of the time, Latham said, once people understand the cooperative aspect and that the county is aware, they are fine with it.

“People might have a little concern about it, but I know the timing that you guys are going to do it and you guys plan it out to the nth degree and, for the most part, all we have to tell them is that we’re fully engaged, we’re helping, it’s a great time of year to do it, we’re ok with it,” he said.

Champa spoke to one of the biggest concerns expressed by the public: the amount of acres to be burned. However, he said, the plans are very tight and not all of those acres will be burned in one year; the Forest Service will select appropriate places to burn depending on conditions and need.

“The beauty of having the whole district to work on is we have that leeway,” said Champa.

To maximize cooperation and keep the public informed, Commissioner Fred Devish asked that the Forest Service engage with Fire Warden Charlie Harrison and also keep Dispatch and the commissioners in the loop when prescribed fires are planned.