Having reached an agreement with Montana earlier this year to share management of national forests, the Forest Service is working to bring a similar plan to Utah.
The federal agency and the Utah Department of Natural Resources are ironing out details for a deal that could give the state a bigger role in managing big pieces of the state’s 8 million acres of national forest, state officials said.
Depending on yet-to-be-finalized arrangements, the agreement could speed and expand forest projects that thin areas at risk of wildfire and yield more timber to advance the Trump administration’s logging objectives.
The deal is to be modeled after the agreement the Forest Service reached with Montana earlier this year, although the acreage and specific land areas are still being finalized, said Jamie Barnes, director of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, in a statement.
