Flathead residents will be seeing some smoke this spring due to prescribed burns. The U.S. Forest Service has burn projects scheduled in the Hungry Horse, Swan Lake and Tally Lake districts.
Forestry officials have been carefully planning the burns, and they say it's both an art and a science to carry out a prescribed fire.
"Its very labor-intensive, and there's a lot of work that goes into this," said Mike West, with the Tally Ranger Fire District.
West says they've prepared the grounds at burn project sites by chopping down trees, removing hazardous fuels and digging fire lines that act as natural boundaries.
For them to be able to ignite the fires, the surface, as well as the atmospheric conditions, have to be just right.