Manti‑La Sal Forest Service outlines large timber program to remove beetle‑killed trees, expand commercial sales and reduce fuels

Mike Scotter, a timber program staffer with the Manti‑La Sal National Forest, told the Emery County Public Lands Council that the Forest Service is expanding a long‑running fuels‑reduction program across the forest to remove large volumes of beetle‑killed spruce and other dying stands and to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

At a council meeting, Scotter said the work focuses on the forest’s North zone — roughly the area from Interstate 70 down toward Highway 6 and the Wasatch Plateau — and that the service has established a 20‑year master plan to treat high‑priority watersheds, wildland‑urban interface sites and other areas. “We’re doing a lot of work on the North zone … a lot of the work that we’re doing is fuels reduction using timber, as a means to do that timber harvest,” Scotter said.

The Forest Service described three main tools: prescribed fire and fuels work, stewardship agreements (including partnerships with state agencies), and a substantial increase in commercial timber sales. Officials said the agency is using commercial sales where smoke and safety concerns limit prescribed burning — for example near Spring City, mine ventilation shafts and a major 345 kV transmission corridor. “We can’t use fire for all of our fuels reduction, because of the wildland‑urban interface,” a presenter said.

Why it matters: council members and forest staff said dead spruce from historic spruce beetle outbreaks and other insect mortality have left extensive continuity of fuels that can generate fast, severe fires and severe post‑fire erosion. Presenters cited the 2012 Seely (Seeley) fire as an example of the rehabilitation costs and downstream sediment impacts that follow high‑severity fire, and argued that proactive removal and fuel‑breaks will reduce those risks.

What the plan would do: maps shown at…