Bridger Canyon Propane Group 2021-2022

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LAST CALL FOR PROPANE!

Do you like to save money?  Do you rent or own your propane tank?  Would you like to simplify your life? If you are you tired of shopping around for the best deal and/or prepaying every year for propane, then signing up for Bridger Canyon Propane Buying Group might be the solution.

If you are new to the canyon or new to receiving the newsletter or just did not know, the time has come to enter in to our 2021-2022 Bridger Canyon Propane Buying Group contract. NOW is the time to get signed up.  If you are already a member, maybe check with a new neighbor or friend to see if they are aware and/or are interested in joining this great program to receive regularly scheduled propane delivery for a constant price.  No need to shop around every year looking for the best deal because it is done for you.  It does not matter if you rent or own your propane tank, you qualify to receive awesome year-round pricing on propane.  All you need to do is sign up!

Need more information?  Please email Kim at bridgerpropane@gmail.com and find out about this great opportunity for discounted and guaranteed propane delivery year-round!  Request for bids goes out soon so do not delay!

Zoning Updates Restarted

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It seems that the Bridger Canyon zoning update is finally back in progress, after a multi-year hiatus. We’ve just received new copies of a complete draft, which we haven’t really had time to review properly. I’ve posted them all at:

https://bczoning.wordpress.com/2021/03/02/march-2021-zoning-draft/

Major changes over the Zoning Advisory Committee’s last work include omission of revisions to the PUD section and dropping the Short Term Rentals section in General Standards (Chapter 15).

In parallel, there has been a county-wide update to the Administrative section of all Part 1 districts. Not all districts have implemented the change; next up is Springhill. They have some objections copied at the link below.

https://bczoning.wordpress.com/2021/03/02/county-wide-part-1-district-administration-update/

On a related note, if you’re rebuilding, or just building anew, we’ve created a FAQ about permits needed and other considerations. It’s under the Bridger Canyon Zoning menu item above.

Post-Fire Forestry Webinar with Northwest Management Oct. 21

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The Bridger Canyon Property Owners Association hosted this webinar, led by consultants from Northwest Management, Inc.

In the wake of the fire, we have learned that immediate action, ideally within a year of the fire, can lead to great benefits for tree regrowth, erosion prevention and soil preservation, and revegetation. With that in mind we wanted to host an information and education session as soon as possible so residents can begin planning.

Northwest Management is a Montana based company that specializes in forestland management and provides consulting services related to forestry, wildfire mitigation, water resource health, and hazard management and planning. The company has experience in Bridger Canyon having worked on numerous forestry projects here over the years. Foresters Chuck Gesme and Eric Hoberg led the call.

Supporting materials:

See also: Peter Kolb/MSU Extension forester’s webinar on the recovery page, which also has the latest approved contractors list and lots of other information on forestry, weeds, etc.

Post-fire Recovery

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This page is a work in progress … we’ll be updating it regularly. Please suggests additional resources or questions in the comments!

The emphasis of this page is currently forestry, but the General resources cover much more. See also our general fire resources post.

Post-Fire Webinar, September 22

This video documents a 9/22/2020 webinar about forest assessment following the Bridger Foothills Fire. There’s also a lot of material, particularly in the Q&A, about seeding, contour felling, salvage logging, and other restoration options.

The primary presenter is Peter Kolb, MSU Extension forester. In the first two hours, he covers the assessment of fire damage to forests and soils in considerable detail, with many helpful visuals. Beginning around 1:52:00 in the video, Christopher Mahony and Avery Hackett discuss NRCS resources, including cost sharing assistance for forestry projects. At about 2:04:00, Peter Kolb returns with a recap of the fire’s rapid evolution from a lightning strike to 8000 acres, and more Q&A on remediation options.

NPR also has a nice 5-minute podcast with Peter on the same topic.

Post-fire Forest Assessment

Much of the material in the video is covered in the following handout:

NRCS Resources

General Recovery Resources

Contractors

Montana DNRC’s Approved Contractor List relative to the DNRC forest health and wildfire safety program (from the Fairgrounds event via Ted Mather):

Salvage Logging and Other Forest Treatments

Sell the timber? Cut trees and leave them on site for erosion control? Leave a standing snag forest for wildlife? These questions are on a lot of minds. Please share advice, plans and experiences in the comments!

Douglas Fir Beetle

Some papers on Douglas Fir Beetle management after fires:

Note that there are currently several outbreaks of the beetle in the canyon.

Weeds

A letter from the Gallatin County Weed District, offering assistance:

A recent booklet from MSU Extension:

The Next Fire – Defensible Space & Forest Management

DNRC page to request a wildfire preparedness site visit, or do an online self-assessment.
MSU Extension forestry publications:
In particular,

A nice video from UNR Extension that gets beyond the basics – this is the best in-depth video I’ve seen. Sometimes the ecosystem is a bit different, but generally the principles are applicable:

A more policy-oriented webinar on wildfire, recommended via the BFF facebook group:

Lost & Found

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Hopefully we don’t have too many lost pets and stock, but here are some options for connecting them with their people:

Comment on this post below, and I’ll aggregate and forward to the Canyon email list

There are a couple stray cats in the Canyon list archives

Bridger Foothills Fire Facebook page

Bozeman Lost Pet Facebook page

Bozeman Lost & Found Facebook page

Craigslist Lost & Found and Pets

Heart of the Valley Animal Shelter

Gallatin County Animal Control

Fire Survey Results

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Thanks to everyone who filled out the post-fire survey. It offers some useful guidance for us.

whereDoYouLiveSummary

The raw results follow, but here are some recurring themes:

Needs

Housing, labor, legal advice, revegetation advice. So far there’s been a big outpouring of community support, but please let us know if needs are unmet. We’re working on forestry and related issues, as are others.

What worked

  • Firefighters
  • Evacuation notices
  • Email, Facebook
  • Early packing and preparation
  • Checklists
  • Removing combustibles around homes
  • Mowing & defensible space
  • Watering

What would you do differently?

Often, the answer is “more of the above,” including in particular:

  • Fuel reduction and fireproofing
  • Prepare for power outages
  • Prepare home to save firefighter effort
  • Turn off propane (at tank and devices)
  • Leave earlier
  • Stay longer to defend area
  • Sprinkler system
  • Fill buckets
  • Scan documents

What could be improved?

  • Coordination of road closure and reopening information
  • Exclusion of gawkers
  • Horse trailer access

A big question on many minds is evidently, what happened to air support on Saturday morning? We don’t have an answer at present.

Communication

While many were happy with evacuation notification, this was also a sore point. We cross-checked comments about evacuation notice against locations:

  • Bridger Canyon Rd, Kelly Canyon to Jackson Creek: 2 positive, 1 negative
  • Bridger Canyon Rd, north of Jackson: 2 positive, 6 negative
  • Aspen Meadow: 2 positive, 0 negative
  • Jackson Creek: 0 positive, 1 negative

This is a small sample, but it does appear that a majority of respondents in the Bridger Canyon Road corridor north of Jackson Creek had a bad experience.

I think this is a fundamentally hard problem, due to the variety of media involved, the rapid evolution of the fire, etc. When the dust settles, we will share these thoughts with the agencies in order to improve.

Several people mentioned cell towers. Cell towers have been explicitly legal in the zoning regulation since BCPOA spearheaded an amendment in 2014, with input from Verizon and Atlas Towers. To date, the tower at Bridger Bowl is only occupied by Verizon. So the problem appears to be lack of provider interest. It’s not clear what we can do to sweeten the deal, but this bears some thought.

Full Results

The full results as of 9/12 are in Survey results as of 2020 09 12 4pm.pdf, slightly redacted to eliminate private or location-specific information.

Afterthoughts? Missed it?

The survey is still open at https://forms.gle/Tepu7MiqtVQrAiDw9

Fire Resources

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We’ve listed a few key resources below. The good folks on Facebook have compiled very extensive resource directories – see the first two links.

General

Bridger Foothills Fire Info & Resources page on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bridgerfoothillsfire/announcements

This should be accessible, even if you are not a Fb user. They have compiled a mega-list of resources:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-AlTBE1cWDwS0kedjzwEQEAvbjKxZaP6ccc_ZYBiwx0/edit

Relief/Assistance

New Greater Gallatin United Way has a letter to the community and a funding request form:

COAD writes:

Montana Red Cross is delivering financial assistance and other support to families whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged by the Bridger Foothills wildfire.
If your primary residence was destroyed or suffered major damage, please contact the Red Cross at 800-272-6668 to request services. Other residents impacted by the fire who need assistance can also reach out to that number and the Red Cross will connect them with community resources.

Government

Incident page on inciweb – including fire briefings and maps:

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7144/

Gallatin (County) Media – generally has up-to-date road closure reports:

https://www.gallatinmedia.org/

Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office – various news, and has been hosting the virtual fire briefings (livestreamed):

https://www.facebook.com/gallatincountysheriffsoffice

Gallatin County on Twitter – seems to have some of the fastest notices:

https://twitter.com/Gallatin_County

Custer Gallatin National Forest has fire briefing videos and other resources:

https://www.facebook.com/CusterGallatinNationalForest

Lost & Found

See this post for links.

Post-fire Recovery

We’re building a separate page of resources here.

Notification

Gallatin Emergency Notification System Signup

https://member.everbridge.net/index/892807736725227#/signup

Bridger Canyon email list signup

http://bcpoa.net/mailman/listinfo/canyon_bcpoa.net

Bridger Canyon email list archive

http://bcpoa.net/mailman/private/canyon_bcpoa.net/2020/date.html

What else?

Please add items in the comments!

Sep 9/10 resources

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From the Sheriff’s page:

Southwest Montana COAD (Community Organizations Active in Disasters) is
now collecting information for people affected by the Bridger Foothills
Fire at
https://www.facebook.com/SWMTCOAD

Please follow them to stay on top of what resources are available to
help people.

From Ted Mather:

All,

I have attached soft copies of two documents distributed at yesterday’s “Neighbors In Need: Relief, Recovery and Support” event held yesterday at the fairgrounds.

Resources Available for Landowners Resources Available for Landowners.pdf
The Montana DNRC’s Approved Contractor List relative to the DNRC forest health and wildfire safety program MasterContractorList2019.pdf
Thank you,

—
Bridger Canyon Fire Dept.
Ted Mather