Wilderness designation positive for forest

To the editor,

In his Sept. 24 column, Larry Wilson lists several reasons for his opposition to wilderness designation for the Whitefish Divide. First, Larry claims that the exclusion of logging from this area would increase the risk of wildfires. My experience doesn't support this argument. In the early 1930s I was falling timber in the Elelehum drainage of Big Creek, near where the Moose Fire eventually started. We clearcut some units, and selectively logged others to improve the winter range. In the early 1990s I worked downstream from here in the Lookout drainage, making clearcuts in country which had been extensively logged. Thanks to drought and high winds, the Moose Fire burned through lower Big Creek as if the forest had never been touched.

In 1988 I was working on the Red Bench timber sale when that fire started. All of the units on this sale were clearcut, and the Spruce Creek country downwind of the fire's ignition site had been logged and pre-commercially thinned. Again, aggressive forest management didn't deter the fire when the wind got behind it.

I'm not opposed to logging: I make my living in the woods, and advocate, in Larry's words, "intensive timber management." But rather than chasing old growth in the high basins, we should be working on more accessible and productive forests, and accept the fact that we can't stop catastrophic fires if the weather doesn't cooperate.

Larry also opposes wilderness designation because it will 'reduce or eliminate recreational uses." I assume Larry's referring to motorized recreation. I think eliminating engines from this area is sensible, as it will enhance and expand other recreational values, like solitude and silence. I may be a logger, but I'm also a backcountry hunter and traveler.

We should focus forest management on places where it will be most beneficial to the land; where our time and money is most practically spent. And we should let the Whitefish Divide country take care of itself, as it has for centuries.

Bob Love

Columbia Falls