MISSOULA — Marshall Canyon is a small drainage that can be out-of-sight, out-of-mind for most Missoulians. But for the past year or so, it’s been a-buzz with chainsaws and machinery as the U.S. Forest Service, the state and Missoula city and county have worked to log, thin and burn the canyon’s wildland-urban interface.

Thursday’s late afternoon sun helped the yellows of the larch and cottonwood trees pop out from the greens of the surrounding pines and also highlighted a yellow bus as it climbed the logging road along the west slope of Marshall Canyon. Inside the bus, around three dozen people listened to a handful of speakers who were part of the Missoula Chamber of Commerce's Forest Resources Committee tour of the forestry work being carried out in Marshall Canyon.

The bus rolled thro

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