MTJP CORPS · MORE THAN JUST PARKS ·MTJP Corps
← Mission 32 · Chalk Buttes
MTJP CORPS · MORE THAN JUST PARKS ·32
Mission 32 · Gallatin National Forest, MT

Chalk Buttes

Custer National Forest

Timing

The agency stopped taking comments on September 14. What you find still counts: it backs the formal objections from people who did comment, it goes to the lawyers on the fight, and it is the story.

The sentence we think is wrong

“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. A dated photograph either backs it up or ends it.

How you settle 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 decision

The Sioux Ranger District is proposing a large-scale timber and fuels project in the Custer Gallatin National Forest that includes over 1,600 acres of commercial logging and nearly 4,400 acres of mechanical thinning. Prescribed fire is also planned across more than 3,100 acres, with some areas receiving multiple treatments. It's an ordinary public comment period, so submitting comments is key to p

Read the whole thing, and write to the agency about it

How to record it so it counts

  1. 01Stand in the unit. Photograph the stand at eye level in four directions.
  2. 02Photograph the ground fuels: needles, brush, downed wood, with a pole for scale.
  3. 03Photograph whether a fire on the ground could climb: low branches and small trees making a continuous run of fuel from the forest floor up into the treetops.
  4. 04Estimate the share of standing trees that are dead in a circle around you, and write it down with the photos that show it.
  5. 05Photograph any evidence of past fire or past treatment.
What would count
  • Live and dead in the same frame. "Mostly green" with the photos to prove it.
  • The fuel on the ground and the way it connects upward, with something in the frame for scale.
All of it, with the phone settings, in the field guide
Are you going?

Say yes or no. It tells the next person whether anyone has this ground covered, and it is the only way we know a request was answered rather than just read. You can change your mind any time, and nobody follows up.

Join, then say you’re going

Nobody has answered yet

Before you go
  1. Public land only. Plenty of land inside a national forest or park boundary is privately owned, and that is not yours to walk on. A gate or a closure sign means stop. Check the rules for the specific place you are going, because they differ.
  2. Don’t touch survey stakes, flagging, equipment or anything a crew left. Photograph it; leave it.
  3. Don’t approach crews, contractors or agency staff about the project. Don’t interfere with any operation.
  4. Wildlife at a distance. No drones in wilderness or anywhere they’re prohibited. Stay off closed roads and trails.
  5. If you’re not sure, don’t. Weather, terrain, water, fire and people are your call, and yours alone.

More Than Just Parks doesn’t direct where you go or what you do. Terms.