The last thing county needs is wilderness designation

With the Upper Smith Creek fire now creeping into Long Canyon, it is time to point out the obvious.

Long Canyon is not a place where you can afford to lose options. It is one of the steepest, tightest drainages in the Selkirks — a chute of heavy fuels, old‑growth cedar, and wind‑driven topography that funnels fire uphill and downhill with equal stubbornness. Access is limited to a handful of rough approaches. Crews already face long hikes, slow travel, and terrain where dozers cannot operate and engines struggle to reach the line.

When fire pushes into country like this, flexibility becomes the only real tool firefighters have. They need chainsaws, mechanized equipment, and the ability to open old roads or cut new line when the terrain demands it. They need every option on the table.

A narrow wilderness corridor would take those options away at the exact moment they matter most.

For the past year, the Idaho Panhandle Public Lands Initiative (IPPLI) has been working to craft a federal lands package for Bonner and Boundary Counties. The effort is well‑intentioned. It brings together conservation groups, timber interests, recreationists, and local governments to see whether a consensus bill can be written for the northernmost part of the Idaho Panhandle National Forest.

But as the conversation has evolved, one proposal keeps resurfacing: designating a narrow slice of the Selkirks as new federal wilderness.

It is time to say clearly what many residents already know. This proposed wilderness does not fit the ticket. It is too narrow, too small, and too poorly suited to the realities of land management in Boundary County.

Idaho does not lack wilderness — and the Panhandle does not need a symbolic designation that creates more problems than it solves.

DARRELL KERBY

Bonners Ferry