Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Launches Forest Management Dashboard
New tool offers Montanans a clearer picture of the efforts underway to manage forests and reduce wildfire risks statewide
By Katie Bartlett
The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) launched an interactive dashboard displaying its forest management strategies this week.
The Forestry Fuels Project Activity Tracker, which went live on July 28, highlights ongoing forestry treatments and shows areas where the agency has deployed new staff, equipment, technology and other resources to improve wildfire preparedness. The dashboard offers Montanans a clearer picture of the efforts underway to manage forests and reduce wildfire risks statewide.
“As the DNRC continues to prioritize wildfire risk reduction and forest management, this tool empowers stakeholders and citizens to understand what actions are being taken across Montana’s 23 million acres of forests,” DNRC Director Amanda Kaster said in a prepared statement announcing the dashboard.
The tool breaks down DNRC’s projects into categories, including forest management and fire protection. Users can zoom into any county within the state to see the types of projects currently active.
The dashboard also has a filter feature designed to allow users to “better visualize the efforts taking place at local levels,” DNRC statewide Forest Action Plan coordinator Ali Ulwelling said. The filters allow users to see which agency bureau oversees a given project, what type of support — from forest health to fuel reduction — it provides, and what the funding source is.
“With transparency in mind, this interactive tool is designed to help Montanans understand the cumulative impacts of DNRC’s intentional forest management across programs and ownerships,” Ulwelling added.
The initiatives on the dashboard include efforts to improve forest health on state trust lands and collaboration on federal lands through the Good Neighbor Authority (GNA). The GNA allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service to enter agreements with the state of Montana to pursue forest-related projects on federal land. The tool also shows private partnerships through the Forest Stewardship Program, a U.S. Forest Service program that provides support to private forest landowners.
Several of the initiatives on the dashboard are active within Flathead County. The Forestry Assistance Bureau has more than 10 active projects in the county focused on fuel reduction, a forestry treatment designed to reduce fire severity and make wildfires easier to contain.
DNRC is also supporting more than 20 Flathead County projects on trust land, including many that are focused on commercial activity — forestry treatment that produces wood products for harvest and sale. The county is also home to 15 Good Neighbor Authority projects, which focus on fuel reduction or forestry treatment.
These ongoing forest treatments come amid a wildfire season that, so far, has been less intense than in recent years, despite high temperatures and dry conditions. Fire starts this summer are at a comparable number to last summer, but the fires have burned fewer acres. As of late July, nearly 17,000 acres had burned across the state, compared to 92,000 acres at the same time last year. That’s an 80% reduction.
Meteorologist Dan Borsum told the Montana Free Press that storms from the northwest acted as “moisture producers,” contributing to the decrease.
Nonetheless, the DNRC’s fire map showed 40 active fires on Friday with nearly 20,000 acres burned this year. As officials warn that the warmth and dryness of August and September could bring more fires, the dashboard remains a key part of DNRC’s wildfire preparedness efforts.