Prescribed Burning Planned For Area District Forests

National Forests in the Missoula area have planned prescribed burns in the next few days, so western Montana residents may see small plumes of smoke.

Lolo National Forest spokesman Boyd Hartwig said there is a planned burn for Tuesday, May 3.

"The Nine Mike District will be burning about 50 acres up in the Owl Creek area, that's about 16 miles southwest of Tarkio," Hartwig said. "That's a burn for habitat as well as fuel reduction, The folks up in the south fork and the Fish Creek drainage will probably see some smoke, but it probably won't be visible from Missoula."

Hartwig said the Missoula District has plans for controlled burns on Wednesday.

"They're looking at burning to tomorrow, either up Butler Creek or on Blue Mountain," he said. "They don't have the air quality go-ahead quite yet, but if air quality looks like it's going to be OK, then they'll burn. Certainly, in the Blue Mountain area smoke would be visible, but it's not a huge burn. It will be about 80 acres on Blue Mountain if they do burn."

Area residents who plan to burn on their private property  must have a valid open burning permit through a rural fire station.