HELENA — You may have noticed while hiking around Mount Helena and Mount Ascension that trees are marked with different colors. Those banded trees are part of the City of Helena's forest fuel reduction plan, funded by the Montana Department of Natural Resources' Forest Action Plan grant.
"Crews have been up here the past few days, and I have noticed cutting and could not get on some of the trails that I normally hike," Mike Caspers, a local hiker, said. "Overall, I think it's been a positive thing."
(Watch to learn more about the fuel reduction plans on Mt. Helena and Mt. Ascension.)
Caspers hikes with his dogs up Mount Helena regularly and has noticed some changes recently.
"You can see more through the forest, and it has kind of opened up a bit," said Caspers.
It's part of the work to thin the forested area, and it doesn't just open up space for people recreating but also for the trees themselves.
"The goal of this project is to reduce overall tree crown density and increase the base canopy height," Brad Langsather, the City of Helena open lands manager, said.
To do that, trees are marked with either pink or blue ribbons.
Langsather said, "Trees that are going to be retained on the landscape are flagged with a blue flag, and we have to create outer boundaries for a treatment unit, and that is the pink colored flagging."
The end goal is to reduce the tree density from about 1-thousand trees per acre to under one hundred trees per acre.
That helps keep the landscape and community safe from fire. It also helps keep the trees healthier.
Lagsather said, "It not only benefits the community from reducing the risk of wildfire, but it also helps the individual trees."
Caspers has already seen this benefit as the tree thinning helped last week's Mount Ascension fire to be contained quickly.
"I am glad they are doing something about it. Obviously, being this close to town, you do not want to have fires creeping in," Capsers said.
The removed trees will be turned into slash piles that will be burned in the fall of 2027 and 2028.
