Region Archives: United States

So far in this year’s California’s wildfire season, about 20 times more acres of land have burned than around this time last year. Since the beginning of the year, there were more than 3,500 wildfires across the state through early July, causing about 207,000 acres of land to burn. Around this time last year, about 10,000 acres had burned. The five-year average of acres burned through mid-July is about 39,000, Cal Fire said last week. “We are not just in a fire season, but we are in a fire year,” Joe Tyler, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said at a news conference earlier in July. …As part of its 2024 budget, California will allocate $2.6 billion through 2028 to fighting wildfires and improving forest health, in addition to $200 million annually to help prevent fires. 

WALDPORT, Oregon – A plan to spray herbicides on a Weyerhaeuser clearcut near one of Waldport’s municipal water sources has drawn condemnation by people who oppose the practice and triggered city officials to take precautionary measures. City officials have not yet been notified when ground spraying on the 110-acre “Pankey Pit” clearcut located immediately east of Waldport on Mount Eckman will begin, the 14-day public comment period required before any action ends Wednesday. …The City’s plan includes having an observer on site during the spray, shutting down the water intake for 72 hours and conducting water tests to determine if any contaminates exist. …“This is out of an abundance of caution,” city manager Dann Cutter told YachatsNews. “We will be on site and monitoring, but only a very narrow portion of the logged area falls into the watershed above our intake. Their mapping shows a significant buffer zone.”

This opinion editorial is a rebuttal to “Burn Back Better? USFS Chief’s Letter Of Intent Provokes Revolt In The Firefighting Community” One of the best methods for reducing the impact of wildfires is to reduce the number of trees per acre by thinning the larger trees and following up with prescribed fire, to enhance forest resilience, by removing surplus smaller trees that act as ladder fuels and potentially killing the larger trees in a wildfire. …Let’s … support the Forest Service when in “Full Suppression” mode and when implementing fuels treatment projects. We need to armor against the uninformed individuals who throw rocks and promote untrue and misleading characterizations of fuels treatments the Forest Service has accomplished using beneficial fire. It is time we push back and use all our collective influence to cooperatively work together and with the Fire and Smoke Management Agencies to reduce the flammability of California’s and Nevada’s fire-prone landscapes.

In recent years, California wildfires have taken on increased severity and reshaped the landscape. California Spotted Owls in the state’s central and southern forests—have been feeling that heat: Destructive megafires burned more of their habitat in 2020 and 2021 alone than in the previous 35 years. Experts say these growing disasters represent the most urgent threat to the birds. Recognizing this mounting menace—along with other hazards—the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year announced plans to give the birds Endangered Species Act protections. Yet the California Spotted Owl’s best hope, counterintuitively, may also lie in fire. Research increasingly suggests that lower-severity burning not only inoculates many drier forests against destructive megafires, but also creates the mosaic of habitat types that the birds gravitate toward. …fire will frame the future for these birds, either devouring the forests they need to survive or clearing a path toward a safer future.

ARIZONA—The USDA Forest Service is developing a five-year plan to reintroduce native plants and ponderosa pine trees in a 551-acre section of the Telegraph Fire burn scar to reestablish habitat for the Mexican spotted owl. Restoration also will support the San Carlos Apache Tribal Forest Protection landscape, one of 21 landscapes the Forest Service recently identified as part of the agency’s 10-year strategy for confronting the wildfire crisis, by reducing wildfire exposure to communities within the San Carlos and Fort Apache reservations. The Telegraph Fire burned through 180,757 acres in June 2021 on the Tonto National Forest Globe Ranger District. The fire reduced the Mexican spotted owls’ nesting source (ponderosa pine) and protected activity centers. These centers sustain and enhance sections of the forest that are presently, recently or historically occupied by breeding Mexican spotted owls.

Commercial logging may proceed in a Forest Service project south of Anaconda, but all other activities must cease until a lawsuit is concluded, according to a federal judge. On Friday, two and a half weeks after hearing oral arguments, Missoula federal district judge Dana Christensen issued his ruling granting most of the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction to stop the Pintler Face Project on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. All noncommercial activity, such as thinning and prescribed burning, will be put on hold across the 73,000-acre project until the lawsuit is concluded, but Christensen allowed the four commercial timber sales to go forward to prevent economic hardship. The logging work is slated to start on July 16. …Mike Garrity, Alliance for the Wild Rockies executive director, said he was happy that the judge said the plaintiffs are likely to win the lawsuit on the merits.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Forest scientists at Oregon State University studying tree regeneration have found that wildfire smoke comes with an unexpected benefit: It has a cooling capacity that can make life easier for vulnerable seedlings. …Smoke’s impact on maximum and average near-surface temperature was similar to the temperature reduction caused by an increase of 15% in canopy cover, OSU College of Forestry research assistant Amanda Brackett said. The finding is line with the idea that while smoke can cause a range of concerns, fire is a natural forest occurrence with ecological upsides. …“Smoke absorbs and scatters incoming solar radiation, reducing how much reaches the forest floor, but we did not anticipate seeing this level of impact,” she said. “That extra cooling effect may be important during extreme heat events when canopy cover and topography do not provide enough protection from harmful and potentially lethal temperatures in the understory.”

As warm and dry weather is forecast to stick around, fire danger begins to increase in forests across the state. Here is where campfire bans and fire danger levels stand across forests. Mount Hood National Forest prohibits all campfires. Beginning Friday, all fires will be prohibited in Mount Hood National Forest. This includes all campfires, charcoal or briquette fires, pellet fires and any other open fires. Portable cooking stoves, lanterns and heating devices using liquefied or bottled fuel are still allowed as long as they can be instantly switched off. Mount Hood National Forest is the first to announce a total fire ban in the state. Oregon’s hot weather has caused fire danger to rise and with the dry and warm long-term forecast, the risk for wildfire increases. Fire personnel anticipate the potential for fires to continue to remain high through the season, the agency said in a news release.