The U.S. Forest Service has a decision open here and is taking comments on it. Gallatin National Forest, Montana.
Record openthe agency stopped taking comments September 14 · what you find still counts
Places to check
2
People it would take
12
Said they’ll go
0
Photographs filed
0
Opened
September 14
Window closed
September 14
Evidence
Nothing filed yet.
No photograph has been filed on this mission yet. The first one lands here with its fingerprint, where its location came from, and how far inside the agency’s own boundary it was taken. The places to check are below.
The objective
2 places to check.
Custer National ForestFuel and fire condition
“The actual risk of crown fire may be higher than the landscape fire behavior analysis results show, as crown fire potential is often underestimated in Eastern Montana ponderosa pine due to model limitations.”
The agency wrote that in its own document, under Fire and Fuels. Nobody has been out to check it.
In the Chalk Buttes ponderosa pine stands marked for thinning, photograph what sits under the big trees: crowded small trees, low dead limbs, and brush reaching toward the canopy. A photo showing an unbroken ladder of small trees and low limbs into the canopy, or bare open ground under widely spaced pines.
The agency has published no document here with a sentence a photograph could settle, only a notice. The line below is read from that notice.
Walk the pine stands in the Chalk Buttes and photograph the biggest trees you can find, standing next to one for scale. Get the standing dead snags, the shade under the canopy, and the forest floor before any cutting or burning.
The window shut September 14. Evidence still counts: it backs the objections from people who did comment, goes to the lawyers, and outlives the decision.