Region Archives: United States

OREGON — Douglas County and timber often go hand in hand. An industry that gave Douglas County its name as the Timber Capitol of the World has changed. Once the catalyst for Oregon’s economy, the timber industry has been dominated by courts, legislation and reform of land stewardship regulations. These changes forced the industry to make necessary adjustments to stay viable. “Impact to the local industry came about in the ‘90s when you had the federal timber supply cratered with the spotted owl and the Northwest Forest Plan and those types of things,” said Douglas Timber Operators’ Matt Hill. “We lost half our mills then.” According to Hill, federal policies to protect the northern spotted owl and other species attributed to a nearly 90% cut to federal timber harvests locally. …CEO Steve Swanson said reinvesting money back into his company is one of the many reasons Swanson Group is still successful.

As the wildfire season has stretched into fall, Ian Turner and 30,000 other firefighters have continued the battle across the West. “You stay heads-up, make sure you maintain situational awareness, and make sure you have a good safety zone,” the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Boise District engine captain said. This was an unusual year for wildfires across the West, he said. The season started early and is continuing well into October, and the fires are bigger. “We started responding at the end of May and it’s been steady since,” Turner said. “We have more intense fires and more time spent on those fires.” Wildfires have continued to break out, even after fall arrived. “Burning conditions similar to August are seen into early to mid-October,” said Jim Wallmann, meteorologist at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. …“but when the winds blow, the fires are burning like they are in mid-August.”

Land and wildlife managers, timber companies, hunters, and conservationists have stitched together a checkerboard of vulnerable working forests, using easements to protect private timberland from development. With a critical piece of the puzzle coming up for final land board approval, advocates say a new model of forest management is taking shape. …Called the Lost Trail Conservation Easement, the project shares nearly seven miles of border with the 7,876-acre U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Lost Trail National Wildlife Refuge, and is the culmination of a partnership between FWP and Southern Pine Plantations (SPP), a real estate and timberland investment firm. …With funding from Habitat Montana, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Trust, and, primarily, the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Legacy Program, FWP secured the land’s development rights while SPP retained full ownership, harvesting millions of board feet of lumber per year while piping fiber into area mills.

Oregon Department of Forestry officials met this week at an iconic western saloon, where speakers addressed wildfire funding while standing in front of artwork depicting nude women. The decision to meet at Hamley & Co. in downtown Pendleton comes a week after The Oregonian/OregonLive reported on complaints from Forestry employees who alleged the agency’s culture is hostile toward women. The Wildfire Funding Work Group, coordinated by the Forestry Department and the Oregon State Fire Marshal, gathered at Hamley’s meeting and event space, Slickfork Saloon. Casey Kulla, state forest policy coordinator for Oregon Wild, estimated a few dozen people, many of them state officials, attended the meeting, including State Forester Cal Mukumoto. …Kulla said one of the pieces of art, for instance, depicted a nude woman on a daybed petting a cat.

At a Thursday board retreat in Pendleton, officials from the Oregon Department of Forestry went over the grim statistics that have come to define modern fire seasons: In 2024, fires burned more than 1.93 million acres in the state, 18 times the amount compared to 2023. Department staff also highlighted the ripple effects that go beyond acres burned and firefighting costs. Joe Hessel, an ODF incident commander and former district forester for northeast Oregon, said the department normally relies on landowners like Eastern Oregon ranchers and farmers to share knowledge of their land with firefighters. While that relationship persisted, Hessel said there was a growing sense of dissatisfaction among some landowners over how the department responded to the fires this year.

NORTHSTATE, Calif. — California has new tools to keep track of state wildfire resilience programs. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said the latest Interagency Treatment Dashboard shows the number of acres of completed wildfire resilience work and includes data from 2021 to 2023. Their representatives said the data from 2023 reveals a major boost in acres treated to protect against wildfires in comparison to 2021. Cal Fire’s Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Dashboard has just started this month to help you keep an eye on the performance of their wildfire prevention projects statewide. “With this tool being on display for the public, it’s a great resource to see where these fuels reduction projects have been placed in communities, how effective they are with wildfire impacts, and start bringing to light to these communities that the fuels reduction is working in many areas,” Cal Fire Staff Chief Emily Smith said.

At an “end-of-season” briefing Wednesday in Springfield, federal and state firefighters gave U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle an update on where fire season stands in the region. U.S. Forest Service Deputy Regional Forester Merv George Jr. said there are currently 12 active incidents with 1,700 firefighters working them in Oregon. “Make no mistake, fire season is still here,” he said. “And we are waiting for season-ending weather to put our fire season to bed.” …George said this has been one of the wildest and most unpredictable fire seasons he’s ever seen. He said more than 2 million acres have burned in the Pacific Northwest. …Following a meeting with firefighters, Wyden said there is still much to do to adequately support wildfire fighting and fire suppression efforts in Oregon. At the briefing, both lawmakers outlined proposals to prevent and reduce the risk of fires in the future.

Sarah Jakober is a U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighter who serves on the Grand Ronde Rappel Crew based in Grande, Oregon. She shares her Brief But Spectacular take on being a wildland firefighter. Jakober provides a window into a day on the job as climate change lengthens wildfire seasons and intensifies their impact.

CALIFORNIA — Along coastal California, the possibility of earthquakes and landslides is commonly prefaced by the phrase, “not if, but when.” This precarious reality is now a bit more predictable thanks to researchers at UC Santa Cruz and The University of Texas at Austin, who found that conditions known to cause slip along fault lines deep underground also lead to landslides above. …In California, where slow-moving slides are constant and cost hundreds of millions of dollars annually, this represents a major step forward in the ability to predict landslide movements—particularly in response to environmental factors like changes in groundwater levels. …”At a practical level, this study provides us with a framework for understanding how much motion to expect based on a change in rainfall, which leads to a change in water pressure in the ground that then translates into motion,” said Noah Finnegan, a professor of earth and planetary sciences.

Steve Daines

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) recently requested more transparency from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) about wildfire management strategy actions to help the public better understand how USFS plans to handle wildfires. … “Specifically, the Forest Service is not being transparent with state partners and the public about which wildfire management strategies are being used,” he said in a statement. “This includes whether fire monitoring is considered part of full suppression or if one wildfire can be split into different management strategies for different sections of the wildfire.” …In an Oct. 11 letter sent to USFS Chief Randy Moore, the lawmaker also noted that communities bordering National Forest System lands follow reports on nearby wildfires and their management closely to protect their lives and homes.

WASHINGTON — At a reforestation site in Washington, forest managers are experimenting with “assisted migration” — planting trees from warmer, drier regions — to boost the forest’s resilience. …“Forest geneticists spent decades and decades convincing foresters that they should use local populations of trees to get their seed from for reforestation,” said forest geneticist Sally Aitken, who has been studying the implications of climate change for trees since the early ’90s. But as the changing climate has created both new extremes and a new normal outside of what local species evolved to withstand, some forest managers are championing an approach that replants with trees adapted not to the current climate, but to the future one. …Despite the results from experiments like Stossel Creek, and others that have occurred in the Eastern U.S. as well as Canada and Mexico, assisted migration is still a controversial practice. 

DURKEE, Oregon — As the Durkee Fire burned in eastern Oregon, other major fires blazed at the same time across Oregon and Washington, straining both national and state resources. Fire crews were so strapped nationally that firefighters from Virginia with little experience with range wildfires were the only personnel available. When the fire season began to ebb at the end of September, 1.9 million acres in Oregon had burned — a state record. …The average acreage that burns each year statewide has doubled every decade since the 1990s, said Oregon state Sen. Jeff Golden, who chairs the Senate Interim Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfire. …In Oregon, current funding mechanisms are inadequate to address the growing complexity and cost of wildfires, Joe Krawczyk said, and the need for a “sustainable and equitable funding structure has never been more urgent.”