Region Archives: United States

George Wuerthner

Recently Governor Greg Gianforte praised forest management for limiting the spread of two fires near Helena. Gianforte suggested that active forest management (i.e., logging) helped firefighters to keep two blazes, the Grizzly Gulch and Mount Helena fires, to 25 and 18 acres, respectively. And the Governor noted that there were 267 fires on DNRC lands this past year, and only 525 acres burned, or an average of 2 acres per fire. “Proactive management protects Montana,” suggests Gianforte, who attributed the small size of these blazes to forest management, a euphemism for logging. The presumption that fuels are the cause of large fires is widespread and promoted by the timber industry and Forest Service — both of who have a direct financial incentive to enable logging.  I can’t discount that past forest management may have influenced the Grizzly Gulch and Mt. Helena fires. However, I will note that the more likely explanation is climate/weather.

GRAND MESA, Colorado — As a small crew worked last week cutting down timber in a spruce-fir forest south of Collbran on Grand Mesa. …These are fairly sunny days for the industry, with a decent amount of work available and logging activity in forests being steady in recent years, thanks in part to the desire by the Forest Service to address concerns such as insect infestation and wildfire danger. “With all the (beetle) infestation throughout the state, we’re getting a lot of wood,” said Kent Strong, who with his wife Kathy owns K&K Lumber Co. in Silt. Strong’s grandfather had a sawmill in the Aspen area, and he and his late father Ken started K&K Lumber in 1978. …The amount of logging and other vegetation treatment measures is due to increase thanks to the infusion of new federal funding aimed at achieving things such as reducing wildfire danger.

Once again California finds itself at the forefront in the fight against climate-related natural disasters. You wouldn’t know it from the scary images of fires engulfing homes, but policymakers actually have all the tools they need to improve our environment. …One major driver for climate change is energy-intensive urban sprawl that pushes urban developments further away from urban centers. By making it easier to build dense housing in urban areas, we can combat climate change and protect human life and property. …While talk of zoning laws and permitting lengths may not be obviously connected to climate change or the uptick in wildfires, urban land-use reform will not only help to reduce carbon emissions, but it will be the key to protecting Californians from wildfires and reducing the number of wildfires in the future. …California’s future doesn’t have to be defined by environmental “doomerism.” There are real, practical solutions… It starts with land-use policies in urban centers.

WASHINGTON — For Washingtonians in search of a little seasonal work: the U.S. Forest Service is now accepting applications for more than a thousand temporary positions across Washington and Oregon next year. The Forest Service is seeking workers to fill full-time and part-time positions in its Pacific Northwest and Southwest regions, and the first application window runs through Oct. 6. The jobs available include forestry technicians, forestry aid workers, visitor services staffers and various scientific roles. Officials said the open positions cover an array of specialties, including fire, timber, natural resources, engineering and archaeology. In Washington, there are openings in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie, Okanogan-Wenatchee, Gifford Pinchot, Olympic and Colville national forests.

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing the harvest of up to nine square miles of young growth timber on Prince of Wales Island. It’s part of a years-long transition away from old growth logging in the Tongass National Forest — and some in the timber industry worry they’ll be left behind. One of the project’s main goals is to provide local mills with three years’ worth of timber. That would mean harvesting about 5,800 acres over 15 years. It’s a haul worth somewhere between $7 and $10 million. The agency says the Thorne Bay Basin Integrated Management Project would be a much-needed boost to Prince of Wales Island’s timber sector. “There is a need for young growth forest management now to produce future desired resource values, products, services, and forest health conditions that sustain the diversity and productivity of forested ecosystems,” the Forest Service’s plan read.

Brent Sohngen

Trees have long been known to buffer humans from the worst effects of climate change by pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now new research … recently published in the Journal Nature Communications, finds that elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased wood volume – or the biomass – of forests in the United States. Although other factors like climate and pests can somewhat affect a tree’s volume, the study found that elevated carbon levels consistently led to an increase of wood volume in 10 different temperate forest groups across the country. This suggests that trees are helping to shield Earth’s ecosystem from the impacts of global warming through their rapid growth. “Forests are taking carbon out of the atmosphere at a rate of about 13% of our gross emissions,” said Brent Sohngen, co-author of the study and professor of environmental and resource economics at The Ohio State University.

Sierra Pacific Industries, the state’s largest private-property owner, has reopened for recreation most of the 2 million acres of forest lands it manages for timber and timber harvesting in California, effective on Friday last week. Recent rains prompted the decision to reopen most SPI forest lands in California, which had been closed due to extreme fire dangers since July 1. Closures will remain in place on SPI forest lands in the vicinity of recent wildfires to ensure the safety of crews working to restore and reforest lands impacted by those fires, and for public safety near those burn scars, SPI communications staff said last week. “Protecting forest lands from catastrophic wildfires is a commitment that SPI takes seriously,” Andrea Howell, a designated SPI spokeswoman, said in prepared remarks. “We are grateful the recent rains improved conditions to facilitate the reopening of our lands for responsible recreation.”

Heavy monsoon rains would normally be cause for celebration in the drought-parched mountains of northeastern New Mexico …especially after the largest wildfire in state history came within a mile of the region’s largest community this spring. But not this year, when fears of running out of fresh water forced officials to cancel [large events]. All over this town of 13,000 people, carwashes are closed. Swimming pools are empty. Restaurants are serving food on paper plates. …Instead of replenishing reservoirs, the downpours are flooding a burn scar left by the blaze known as the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak fire, releasing contaminants into private wells and overwhelming Las Vegas’s main water supply with ashy sludge. It is the latest chapter in a catastrophe created by the federal government when Forest Service employees lost control of not just one but two prescribed burns set this spring to clear out undergrowth.

The Oregon Department of Forestry will spend an extra year talking with the public about its controversial plan to create a wildfire risk map and impose rules on property owners in high fire risk areas. The agency was overwhelmed by public outcry in June after it released a map of wildfire risk levels on every property in Oregon. Last month, after receiving thousands of public comments and 1,600 appeals from property owners, Oregon State Forester Cal Mukumoto announced his agency would withdraw the map and revise its plans to use the map as the basis for new wildfire protection rules. Property owners complained that the map could reduce property value and increase insurance costs, and many filed appeals disputing the fire risk level assigned to their tax lots. The forestry department is now planning to spend the next five months talking with the public … before releasing a new draft in March.