Fergus Triangle Prescribed Burn

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The Missouri and Musselshell Breaks area is a rugged landscape within 20 miles of the Missouri and Musselshell Rivers in Central Montana. Common breaks habitats include ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, sagebrush, grasslands and badlands. The Breaks areas have high fire occurrence within the Central Montana Fire Zone, with many areas historically having a fire return interval < 25 years. Fire suppression efforts over the last century have resulted in a departure from historic conditions with increased fuel loadings and stand density in many forest types. Thirty-five wildfires have burned 93,000 acres in the project area since 1995. Wildfires in 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2014 accounted for nearly 60,000 of these acres. This project would consist of a prescribed burn and monitoring in the Fergus Triangle as a second entry following the 2002 prescribed burns. Since 2009 the Lewistown Field Office has conducted prescribed burns on 500 â¿¿ 6500 acres annually in the breaks, with plans to continue over the next 20 years. The initial Fergus triangle project was coordinated with Montana State University. This project will support an increased public knowledge for fire management of forested conifer breaks, upland and riparian habitats. Multiple prescribed burns over the last decade on nearly 20,000 acres under various conditions has resulted in a wide range of habitat changes. Additional research on prescribed fires, wildfires and desired habitat conditions would support fire management across all ownerships (BLM, FWS, State and Private) in the Missouri and Musselshell Breaks. Additional research would also support understanding of the physical processes that link plant composition and density to groundwater levels and surface water discharge. Furthermore, the non-linear relationship between tree density and hydrologic response indicates that there may be more complicated & inter-related biotic/abiotic processes that influences the relationship between tree density and hydrologic response. A mechanistic understanding of these eco-hydrologic processes could improve forest, riparian-wetland, and water resource management by informing site selection and treatment decisions. Consequently, a study that relates the biotic/abiotic processes associated with stand density to specific hydrologic pathways would improve upon previous studies and help land managers to improve the efficiency and productivity of forest management treatments.Utilization of the knowledge that results from this work would improve land management decisions in the Missouri and Musselshell Breaks by appropriately considering fire effects. Funds may be used more efficiently. To date funding for prescribed burns have averaged less than half as much per acre compared to wildfire suppression.

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