State officials hope to announce by autumn their next steps toward managing target shooting in the Yacolt Burn State Forest.
Brock Milliern, statewide recreation manager for the Washington Department of Natural Resources, told a public meeting in Vancouver Tuesday there have been an increasing number of calls, emails and concerns regarding target shooting in four state forests.
“Target shooting is not something we’ve directly engaged in with the public before,’’ Milliern said at the meeting, attended by 85 locals clearly concerned about maintaining locations to shoot.
Milliern calmed the group by assuring them that efforts are about managing target shooting, but not eliminating it.
“If you are asking if we are looking to push target shooters off the land, we are not,’’ he said.
Currently, target shooting is allowed on state forest lands during daylight hours, in areas with an earthen backstop that can stop bullets safely, but not within 500 feet of a structure, recreation site or across, along or down a road or trail.
In the Yacolt Burn State Forest, no-shooting corridors also exist for eight miles on road L-1000 between Livingston Mountainand Dole Valley, the first mile of road L-1500 and the north side of road L-1400, said Scott Essman, a DNR law enforcement officer.
Milliern said the planning process for the Yacolt Burn and three others forests depends on the comments gathered at public meetings this week, plus how much DNR staff gets sidetracked working on wild fires this summer.
DNR actively manages most types of recreation in state forests and now it’s time to add target shooting, he added.
Attendees at the meeting were broken into groups and asked a variety of questions. Among the questions were what amenities should a target shooting area have. Among the answers were parking, trash barrels, shooting benches, firing lines, targets and kiosks.
Miller said a very long-distance shooting range that does not conflict with other land uses is unlikely in Western Washington.
A question about specific locations for target shooting areas got a wide variety of answers.
The Yacolt Burn State Forest is 90,000 acres in eastern Clark and western Skamania counties.
