National Fire Plan Success Story
Fuels Reduction Project Helps Slow Fire Spread
Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, Montana
National Fire Plan - Fuels Reduction
2008
A Montana Conservation Crew stands on the massive pile of fuel they removed from a 14-acre treatment site at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site in 2003.
Despite unfavorable weather conditions, firefighters quickly caught the Cottonwood Fire after it burned into a fuels reduction project area.
A mitigation crew treated fuels on the Grant-Kohrs Ranch property (this side of the buck and rail fence) in 2003. Much heavier fuels are present on the adjoining property.
When the Cottonwood Fire started April 13, 2008 just off the boundary of Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site in Deer Lodge, Montana, it did not have an opportunity to spread far. Once it crossed into the historic site, it burned into a 14-acre area that the Montana Conservation Corp crews had treated under a National Fire Plan contract for hazardous fuels reduction in 2003. The reduced fuel loading helped keep fire behavior to a minimum, which allowed firefighters to catch the fire at two acres on the historic site lands.
The fire started from an escaped leaf and debris burn on the adjacent city property. Temperatures were unseasonably warm, relative humidity dipped into the teens and winds were gusting up to 15 miles per hour. Since green-up was still a month away, the fire had potential to spread rapidly. Before the mitigation project, areas along the creek were covered in thick, decadent fuels that had not experienced a fire or mechanical treatment since the ranch was established as a National Historic Site in 1972. The 1,600-acre Grant-Kohrs Ranch has 80 historic structures and is in the city limits of Deer Lodge, making it a prime example of the wildland-urban interface.
"The primary objective of the fuels project was to reduce fuel loading in the riparian area adjacent to the Historic Site boundary and the city of Deer Lodge to prevent wildfires from spreading from the town into the Historic Site and vice versa," said Mitch Burgard, fuels and prescribed fire specialist for Glacier National Park and its cluster parks. "Thick overgrown brush and heavy fuel loading from fallen cottonwood tree limbs would have created flame lengths and intensities that would prohibit firefighters from using direct attack."
The treatment area is downwind from the main developments and historic structures. Grant-Kohr's Ranch managers initiated the fuels project because they were concerned a wind-driven, intense fire in the riparian area could push across the dry hay fields towards the ranch and adjacent public and private property in Deer Lodge.
Contact: Mitch Burgard, Fuels and Prescribed Fire Specialist, (406) 888-7811.