Crews rehabilitating burned Boise forest

BOISE – Helicopters are carrying crews and thousands of small trees deep into the Boise National Forest to fill in holes left by a 2003 fire.

Contractors expect to plant more than 200,000 pines and firs in areas of the forest burned so badly by the Hot Creek Fire that no seed trees remain to regenerate the forest.

The planting is the final step in the rehabilitation done after the fire raced across 26,560 acres of largely unroaded areas near the mining community of Atlanta, 55 miles northeast of Boise.

In many areas, the flames burned unevenly, and enough ponderosa pines and Douglas firs remain to reseed the surrounding area, said Mark Stevens, Idaho City Ranger District assistant silviculturalist.

But in the areas targeted for planting, it would be years before scattered seeds would spread new trees into the area.

“Eventually they would have seeded naturally, but we are accelerating it by decades,” Stevens said.

Where roads allow access, trees and planters are carried to the sites by trucks.

Many of the areas affected are far from roads, requiring helicopters for hauling crews and trees, Stevens said.

The overall cost for planting the 1,720 acres is about $250,000, he said.

Visitors will have to wait 10 to 15 years to be able to see the trees through the underbrush when driving on the Middle Fork of the Boise River road.