FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — U.S. Forest Service officials say they tried to balance competing interests in a plan released Wednesday that allows loggers to remove trees killed in a massive central California wildfire last year, but environmentalists called it a travesty and threaten to sue.

The highly awaited decision will allow logging on 52 square miles of forests blackened in the Rim Fire, which burned 400 square miles of the Stanislaus National Forest, Yosemite National Park’s backcountry and private timber land.