The Boundary Couty Board of Commissioners sent a follow-up letter to the U.S. Forest Service regional office in Missoula, Mont., requesting emergency funding to mitigate fire risk and expedite timber harvesting in Boundary County. 

Commissioners said they heard “crickets” from Idaho Panhandle National Forest Supervisor Tim Gilloon in response to a June 16 request to permit emergency logging operations in the region. A follow-up letter was sent July 14. 

“Several weeks ago, the Boundary County Board of Commissioners submitted a formal letter to your office requesting that you initiate consultation,” commissioners wrote in the letter. “To date, we have not received any formal response or acknowledgment from your office regarding this critical and time-sensitive request.” 

Additionally, commissioners sent a letter to the regional forester requesting “$10 million of the recent $32 million in supplemental funding received by Region 1 of the U.S. Forest Service to projects in Boundary County, Idaho, to directly support increased timber harvest and proactive forest management of the Bonners Ferry Ranger District.” 

The letter references immediate readiness for implementation, collaborative capacity and proven partnerships with IPNF and the Kootenai Valley Resource Initiative, the timber industry as an economic pillar, local infrastructure and workforce readiness and wildfire risk in the wildland urban interface as factors that make Boundary County “uniquely positioned to immediately and effectively utilize this funding to enhance timber harvest efforts while advancing shared goals of forest resilience, wildfire mitigation, and rural economic vitality.” 

On June 2, commissioners declared a state of emergency due to the potential risk of wildfire this summer. 

“We’re at a catastrophic stage right now. We got to get some movement out of the federal system,” said commissioner Lester Pinkerton. “We don’t know where this emergency declaration is going to go, but it’s very important for us as community leaders to address this issue.”