Prescribed burning starting for Sioux Ranger District

The Sioux Ranger District, Custer Gallatin National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management, Miles City Field Office are planning for a series of fall burns starting as early as October 7, 2019. Prescribed burns will be dependent upon proper fuel and weather conditions.

The Forest Service and the BLM are working jointly on multiple burn units, 500-800 acres in the Needmore-Russell Prescribed Burn, located approximately six miles southeast of Ekalaka near the Camp Needmore campground and the MacNab Pond campground (T1N R58E Sec. 24, 25, and 26). The area surrounding Camp Needmore was thinned in 2008, and the low intensity maintenance burn will help to remove low hanging branches and shrubs, known as understory, as well as clean up many of the fuels on the ground to encourage new grass and aspen growth.

Additionally, one other prescribed burn, the 100-acre Moreau Peak Prescribed Burn is being considered in the East Short Pines Land unit of the Sioux Ranger District, (T16N R3E Sec. 13 and 14). This prescribed burn is aimed at removing small diameter ponderosa pine encroachment in grass meadows.

Fire personnel will be coordinating with several local agencies as well as rural fire departments and private land owners prior to ignition dates of each prescribed burn. For additional information contact Robert Cordell, Fuels AFMO, Sioux Ranger District at: 605-797-4432 or Paul Pauley Fuels Specialist, Miles City Field Office at: 406-233-2800.

Additional information about the Custer Gallatin National Forest can be found online at: http://www.fs.usda.gov/custer or by following @CusterNF, on facebook: Custer Gallatin National Forest. For more information or advice about maintaining defensible space call the BLM Miles City Interagency Dispatch Center at 406-233-2900. For the latest BLM news and updates visit the web at: http://www.blm.gov/mt, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BLMMontana or follow us on: Twitter@BLM MTDKs and @ BLM MTDK Fire.