(MISSOULA, Mont.) - The Bureau of Land Management’s Missoula Field Office is preparing to burn landing piles associated with several timber sales and stewardship projects this spring in the Lower Blackfoot River area.
The piles are near Belmont Creek and Highway 200 near Potomac. Smoke may be visible periodically starting in early March. When weather and fuel conditions are favorable, multiple landing piles will be lit and each of these piles will produce smoke for several days.
These landing piles are the result of timber sales and thinning treatments that will create what was historically more natural conditions characterized by large-diameter Douglas fir, Ponderosa pine, and western larch with intermittent openings of forbs, shrubs, and bunch grasses. These piles contain non-merchantable slash generated from vegetation treatments and are a critical part of reducing fuel loading in the area which decreases the potential for a high severity wildfire.
For more information about these controlled burns, contact BLM Fire Management Specialist Michael Albritton at the Missoula Field Office at (406) 329-3914.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management
