By Peter Kolb – MSU Extension Forestry Specialist

In 2022 the Montana Forest Owners Association (MFOA) received a grant from the Montana Collaborative Association to survey forest landowners regarding the actions and goals they had formulated to address fire hazards across their forested lands. Twenty questions that were formulated by the MFOA Board of Directors were mailed to approximately 3000 randomly selected landowners of whom 1000 had attended MSU Extension Forestry Stewardship workshops at some time over the past 30 years (these workshops assist landowners to learn about forest ecology, inventory their forests and develop a management plan). About 16 percent of forest stewardship graduates responded, and 7 percent of non-workshop forest landowners responded which is consistent with expectations from previous single-contact survey attempts of private citizens.

The summarized results of this survey are posted on the following pages. The average ownership size for stewardship graduates and non-stewardship participants was 191 and 307 acres respectively. Overall there are about 29,000 Montana forest landowners who own at least 10 acres of land across Montana. The vast majority own under 100 acres, thus the average acreage size of those who responded appears skewed towards larger ownership sizes. The non-stewardship average acreage size appears to be higher, but this is because two of the landowners who responded for this group owned more than 10,000 acres, which influenced the average acreage size calculation. When these two large ownerships are excluded, both respondent groups had similar acreage size values. National surveys of landowners indicate that larger-acreage landowners are more likely to hire forestry consultants than smaller acreage owners because of the economy of scale. There are clearly differences in land ownership objectives if the land is the main income source for the owner, or if land ownership is a supplemental, but not main, income source. This can result in different priorities and values regarding forest management. However, every forest owner, regardless of the size of their forest, is an important asset to any community across Montana. Understanding the needs and priorities of all forest landowners was the goal of the survey.

There is still much analysis that can be done with this data set, including differences between larger and smaller acreage forest owners, those who make a primary living from their lands versus those who do not, and those who value their lands primarily for recreation versus those who own it as part of their business/annual income.

The initial survey results were stratified by stewardship and non-stewardship graduates in an effort to examine the impacts of this education program designed to deliver an understanding and awareness of forest ecology and overview of forest management practices. The program is purposely neither pro- nor anti-timber harvesting. Interestingly, forest stewardship graduates showed twice the desire to harvest some timber to meet their objectives. This could be interpreted as a selective bias of wanting to manage timber as a basis for attending the stewardship program, or the realization after learning about forest ecology, that timber harvesting is a tool to manage forests for values such as recreation, wildlife and resistance to wildfires. Our stewardship exit polls indicate that workshop attendees actually have more of an anti-timber harvesting bias prior to attending workshops, thus the latter hypothesis is more likely the reality.

As with all surveys of people, there is a temptation to attach a “cause and effect” interpretation to survey results. We caution readers to avoid this temptation. Survey respondents naturally offer many different perspectives to survey questions that can include “good intentions versus real actions,” or “second guessing the purpose of the survey,” and “spur of the moment responses versus several days thinking about the question.”

We intend to conduct a follow-up survey via phone call with a subset of landowners to determine if there is a difference between those who took the time to answer the mail survey, and those who did not. We hope you find the survey results interesting and helpful!

Survey Results

Some survey questions allowed for multiple answers and may not equal 100%.
  Stewardship graduates Non-stewardship
Total responses 161 171
Total acres 29,032 50,988
Average 191 307
Maximum/minimum 5,700/0.5 20,000/0
1. Years owned
Average 25 36
Maximum 130 150
Minimum 0.5 1.5
2. Primary uses
Privacy 98% 58%
Wildlife 78% 35%
Recreation 63% 35%
Investment 25% 23%
Wood production 20% 10%
Livestock 5% 15%
3. Forest density manipulation
Yes 81% 75%
No 14% 20%
Total acres 12,591 8656

Average acres

(1-1000 acre range)

 85.9 74.6
3.1 When?
Last 5 years 52% 27%
Last 10 years 13% 22%
Over many years 35% 51%
3.2 Was slash treated?
Yes 83% 63%
No 17% 6%
3.3 Slash technique used
Pile and burn 69% 98%
Mastication 8% 7%
Lop and scatter 7% 6%
Other (chipping) 5% 6%
Broadcaast burn 0 6%
4. Knowledge and experience with fire
Expert 3% 3%
A lot 21% 29%
Some 66% 51%
Not much 9% 10%
5. Is a crown fire likely in your forest on a hot day?
Yes 58% 58%
No 22% 17%
Don't know 10% 25%
6. Would hand tools likely control a 1-3 acre fire?
Yes 29% 39%
No 61% 51%
6.1 If an engine and water were available, is control of 1-3 acre fire possible?
Yes 66% 71%
No 22% 23%
7. Are there more actions you could take that could increase wildfire control?
Yes 73% 59%
No 18% 35%
7.1 What actions could you take?
Additional thinning 46% 25%
Thin post thin/harvest dense regen   4%
Trim up lower branches 9% 5%
Reduce dead trees/logs on more acres 8% 13%
Reduce brush small trees 9%  
Create more fire breaks 6% 2%
Create fire breaks against neighbors 2% 2%
Control fuels on neighbors 2% 3% (federal and state lands)
Harvest in untreated 6% 6%
Cut or graze grass and weeds 5% 2%
Create more access to water 4% 1%
Create more access across property 4% 4% (2% access blocked by F.S.)
Broadcast burn 3% 4%
Treat slash (mastication/pile burn) 2% 0%
7.2 How many more acres could be treated?
Total acres 12, 899 14,020
Mean per ownership 122.9 166.9
Range in acres 0-4000 2-3000
8. Would you be interested in doing more with regard to fire risk?
Yes 75% 74%
No 7% 22%
9. Would a professional assessment help with risk reduction efforts?
Yes 58% 61%
No 24% 38%
10. Can more risk reduction practices (brush, dead wood removal and thinning) be conducted without compromising your ownership objectives and values for your land?
Yes 81% 82%
No 5% 11%
11. What assistance would be most helpful?
More information 27% 35%
Technical assistance (site visit) 37% 41%
Work (labor) assistance 48% 47%
Financial assistance 48% 56%
12. Would you attend a one-day workshop to help assess, design and implement fuels treatment?
Yes 68% 55%
No 12% 36%
Online webinars of 3-5 one-hour seminars?
Yes 37% 19%
No 41% 73%
Online programs that can be viewed on own time (not live)
Yes 40% 42%
No 40% 48%
Willing to attend a 3-day workshop
Yes 42% 22%
No 38% 63%
13. Are you willing to participate in landscape cooperative planning with neighbors?
Yes 69% 78%
No 11% 13%
14. What are your contraints to participating on landscape projects?
Not sure what to do 9% 18%
Don't trust planning process 3% 4%
Plan is asking me to do too much to forest 5% 5%
Financial costs are too much 27% 41%
No time 11% 23%
Conflicts with my forest values 4% 5%
Fear contractor will not do work the way I want 20% 15%
Fear the project will harm value I like in my forest 13% 13%
Not worried about wildfire in my forest 0% 6%
Need to know more before offering an opinion 25% 38%
15. Who would you most like to work with?
Rural fire/warden 14% 26%
NRCS forester 24% 13%
DNRC forester 34% 28%
Local consulting forester 11% 9%
Timber industry forester 9% 4%
Forest service forester 6% 10%
MSU Extension forester 31% 12%
Any of the above 29% 42%
16. What would be the most useful source of treatment information?
Site visit professional advice 50% 44%
One-day workshop classroom and field trip 27% 11%
Picture brochure of forest treatments-fire risk 15% 20%
Web based pictorial guide 15% 5%
Half-day field trip and time for questions 13% 6%
Half-day classroom and field trip 9% 4%
Not interested in any 4% 17%
17. What percentage of your forested land would you be willing to treat?
5-10% 2% 6%
15-15% 11% 11%
30-50% 14% 18%
60-75% 19% 15%
80-90% 14% 12%
100% 16% 30%
18. Would you consider having your property mapped and listed on a secure database regarding wildfire risk and access for suppression actions?
Yes 47% 43%
Maybe 25% 33%
No 9% 18%
19. Do you wish to enroll in the confidential MSU Extension Forestry mailing list?
Yes 30% 44%
No 4% 34%
Already am 47% 18%
20. Do you wish your contact information to be shared with MFOA so you can get mailers and workshop information?
Yes 61% 53%
No 14% 30%