Two major U.S. Forest Service projects — authorized under federal emergency powers — will target up to around 308,000 acres of public land along the Front Range with treatments meant to reduce wildfire risk, including logging. That’s a massive area, around the total size of the city of Los Angeles. The projects, spread out over at least two decades, may include clear-cutting patches of national forest up to 20 acres, using prescribed burning to reduce timber that could fuel blazes, and spreading herbicide over thousands of acres. Completing those treatments may also require building temporary roads through thousands of acres of previously untouched forest — known as roadless areas. …The plans, and other Forest Service proposals, have drawn sharp criticism from some environmental groups, who say they encourage large-scale logging on public lands.