By Holly McKenzie, Montana Tree Farm Chair

Image of Holly Mckenzie in a purple blouse next to white fowers.

In the past year, there have been increasing inquiries from forestland owners having a difficult time finding homeowners insurance for structures in a wooded setting. We’ve heard of longtime carriers who have abruptly dropped their clients or greatly increased rates. Other companies are no longer offering coverage in certain states where recent large fires have resulted in hundreds of lost structures and vehicle losses. Tree Farm and DNRC foresters are being asked if we offer an inspection to certify homes that meet or exceed safe home ignition zone standards. The short answer is “No.” There is a risk in declaring something “fire safe” when nothing truly is. There are “fire resilient” homes and forests that would withstand many types of fire and then still succumb to a wind-driven, intense firestorm. You can’t fireproof your forest, but you are able to help it reach a resiliency that might protect it from 90 percent of fires and even leave a mosaic of trees and pockets of green on the landscape.

Your community likely has fire suppression response from a local volunteer department or Montana Department of Natural Resources (DNRC), or even the U.S. Forest Service. Some of our towns have tribal fire protection or BLM fire response. No matter who you rely on to put out lightning strikes and escaped debris piles, some of that responsibility is yours! It isn’t fair to expect young fire crews, in their 20s and 30s, to lay their life on the line to protect your home if you haven’t put any effort into pruning and limbing the driveway and access roads. Firefighters won’t (and shouldn’t have to) enter narrow roads with overhanging limbs and thick vegetation. They should not risk their lives to protect a forest that you’ve never bothered to thin or only marginally thinned because you don’t want to see neighbors or hear the nearby highway. These neighborhoods and communities we live in are affected by adjacent management and when one or several neighbors refuse to thin the forest, take care of weeds, or address an insect/disease issue, others suffer the consequences. The Montana Forest Action Plan was written by numerous collaborators to address this Cross Boundary concept of managing multiple ownerships for multiple gains and benefits. After three very warm and dry summers, many of our trees are severely stressed and we are likely to see increased fire activity this summer.

There are grant programs to help with the financial cost of hiring tree thinners and masticators to grind up debris. These are helpful programs but they aren’t available everywhere and they may never show up in your neighborhood. Just as you take on the responsibility of mowing the lawn, painting the house, and budgeting for a new roof or deck surface, we must all be responsible forestland owners and thin the trees, even if that means saving money to pay a local contractor to help get the job done. Yes, it gets difficult to do as you age. Yes, it is expensive to have someone come and cut young trees. If you have thinned the trees out before now, maybe you have sawtimber to sell and it may help offset the cost of cleaning up the forest again and thinning the crowded younger trees. There will be slash to clean up and piles to burn and it is a never-ending cycle, but owning forestland is a privilege and with that comes great responsibility. If we want to live in a healthy, safer forest, we need to work hard to keep it thinned and healthy. There is no other option, and it doesn’t end at your boundary line or the next ownership boundary. We are all in this together so make forest health one of your 2024 goals!