Gifford Pinchot officials brief Lewis County on timber plans, Spirit Lake safety and road projects

Johanna Kovarik, Forest Supervisor for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, updated the Lewis County Board of County Commissioners on March 25 on wildfire outlook, forest planning and local projects that will affect timber supplies and travel corridors in the county.

Kovarik said the Northwest geographic area is "expected to have a normal or low significant fire potential through June," and described several planning and implementation efforts now underway across the forest. "We're hoping to get the draft out for comment, fairly soon," she said of the forest-wide plantation-thinning environmental assessment that covers roughly 156,000 acres of plantations under 80 years old and about 500 miles of potential control-line treatments.

The plantation-thinning and potential control-line (PCL) effort is intended to increase wildfire management options and to produce timber for sale. Kovarik said the first sales from that project are likely in fiscal year 2027, "coming from the East Fork Lewis area near Kalama." She also told commissioners that on March 19 the U.S. Fish…