Region Archives: US West

This week, the U.S. Forest Service directed its employees in California to stop prescribed burning “for the foreseeable future,” a directive that officials said is meant to preserve staff and equipment to fight wildfires if needed. The pause comes amid the crucial fall window for planned, controlled burns, which remove fuel and can protect homes from future wildfires — raising concerns that the move will increase long-term fire risks. “There are two times in the year when it’s safe to do prescribed fire: in the fall right before the rains come, and in the spring when things are dry enough to burn but not dry enough to burn it in a dangerous way,” said Michael Wara, energy and climate expert at Stanford University. He worries half of the prescribed fire season on federal lands will be sacrificed because of this decision.

LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – Forest health is a top priority of the Lake Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program (EIP), a landscape-scale collaboration and partnership between nearly 80 public and private organizations to achieve the environmental goals of the region. To date, partners have treated nearly 95,000 acres in Lake Tahoe Basin forests to reduce hazardous fuels. After decades of fire suppression, Tahoe Basin’s forests are overstocked and highly vulnerable to insects, disease, and catastrophic wildfire. …Land managers use different methods during forest thinning treatments that include mechanical and hand thinning. …Short-term effects of forest thinning projects include temporary impacts to recreational areas and changes to the appearance of Lake Tahoe Basin forests. …These areas recover quickly and improve ecologically as new vegetation growth occurs within a few years.

With broad public support and the endorsement of Gov. Greg Gianforte, the Montana Land Board’s 3-2 vote gave conditional approval to a nearly 33,000-acre conservation easement on working forests between Kalispell and Libby. …The tentative approval is on the condition that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) and its partners amend the terms of the easement to expressly guarantee a third-party owner’s subsurface mineral rights. As the board considered the project’s first phase, which would protect 32,981 acres in the Salish and Cabinet mountains, proponents described it as the culmination of a years-long effort by FWP, the nonprofit Trust for Public Land and landowner Green Diamond Resource Company. Despite the succession of private ownership, the land has been managed for de facto public access for more than a quarter century, in large part because the timber companies have been invested in long-term forest management.

San Jose State wildfire researchers are studying the impact of the devastating CZU Lightning Complex Fire in the Santa Cruz mountains and the importance of forest management to keep forests safe from extreme wildfires. Nadia Hamey, Lead Forester and Property Manager at the San Vicente Redwoods remembers all too well when the CZU Lightning Complex Fire tore through the forest, calling it an intense time. …Hamey said, just six months before the CZU Lightning Complex Fire, they did a prescribed burn that ultimately protected that part of the forest. “So, it kind of skipped over the prescribed burn footprint, and the Crown Fire kept raging through the area that had not had a prescribed to burn,” said Hamey. The contrast is striking. There is a clear difference where the forest was untouched by wildfire and then just a few feet away where the trees are burnt and blackened.

Wildfires are accelerating at a pace so fast that the trees burned can’t be replaced fast enough. Now, experts are trying to move beyond their old methods of plant and pray. …The Forest Service typically requires trees that are being replanted to be the same species at the same elevations as before a fire. But with climate change complicating matters, that regulation might be changing. …That’s where groups like the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute come in. “Our goal is to understand how tree species are surviving outside of their current existing range. …”Our goal is to understand how tree species are surviving outside of their current existing range. …we wanted to push where a given species exists on a mountain to understand if they are able to go a little bit higher in elevation, or perhaps a little bit lower,” said Stevens-Rumann.

SEATTLE — Ty Abernathy tips his head back and judges where this big tree will fall as he starts cutting it with a chain saw. …For more than a century, this has been a way of doing business in Washington, cutting forests owned by the state and today managed by the Department of Natural Resources. But in an era of climate warming — and growing climate activism — there is a new war in the woods. …This fight is not over old growth, the trees sprouted before 1850 and never cut since settlers came here. The conflict now playing out across Washington is over the old-growth forests of tomorrow. These are second-growth forests originating before 1945 and never sprayed with herbicide or replanted to a dense monoculture of nursery-grown seedlings. …Suddenly, DNR timber sales that can fetch millions of dollars are being paused, canceled, litigated and protested, throwing the state’s timber business into disarray.

Washington’s Commissioner of Public Lands runs the state Department of Natural Resources. The agency is responsible for managing nearly 6 million acres of public lands. …Nearly half of those acres are trust lands, that by state mandate must produce revenue to support schools and other services in rural counties, primarily through logging. A crowded primary in an open race for the position ended in a recount. Democrat Dave Upthegrove squeaked through with 49 votes and is facing off against Republican Jamie Herrera Beutler. He’s the chair of the King County Council; she’s a former congresswoman from Southwest Washington. Their contest is shaping up to be a clash over forest management styles — and how to best use that resource in the face of climate change. At stake in this race are three main things: the health of Washington’s timber industry, the next generation of its old growth forests, and how much DNR revenue flows to rural communities.

Cal Fire-Humboldt-Del Norte Unit announced they will be performing a prescribed burn on Ettersburg Ranch road and Walter Ridge road over the course of three days starting on Sunday, Oct. 20- Tuesday, Oct. 22. Cal Fire Humboldt- Del Norte said the controlled 300-acre burnis planned for the restoration of oak woodland habitat and to reduce wildfire hazardous fuels… This burn is said to be part of a long-term habitat management plan which intends to reduce hazardous wildland fuel loading. Cal Fire said the treatment will help to enhance the health of the native plant communities, aid in the control of non-native plant species, and protect and enhance habitat for animal species dependent on the oak woodland ecosystem.

Restoring forest health is a major priority for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) and our partners on the Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team. Following the Angora Fire in 2007, TRPA helped bring fire and forest management agencies together to increase the pace of forest fuel reduction projects, streamline permit processes, and prioritize new funding sources. The Angora Fire was a wakeup call for the Tahoe Basin. Although it was relatively small by today’s standards, the 3,100-acre fire destroyed more than 250 homes along Angora Ridge on the South Shore… TRPA is also helping fire and emergency management agencies coordinating on emergency evacuation planning. The Tahoe Basin was awarded a $1.7-million federal PROTECT grant for regional evacuation planning and to address wildfire and extreme weather vulnerabilities in our transportation and communication infrastructure.

Wildfires have become an increasingly serious disaster risk in California, US. Besides the risk of death, they cause widespread damage to private property, infrastructure, and the environment. In the 2024 wildfire season so far, the US State has seen nearly 6,800 wildfires burning more than one million acres. …Cordi Craig works in Placer Resource Conservation District, an independent and self-governing special district, which occupies most of California’s Placer County. …Placer RCD provides technical assistance to anyone that wants it, and Cordi works as a Prescribed Fire Program Manager, helping to oversee the planning, implementation, and monitoring of prescribed fires, controlled fires which are used to manage vegetation, reduce the risk of uncontrolled wildfires, and maintain ecological balance. PreventionWeb spoke with Cordi to learn how her role is helping communities in California build resilience to the ever-growing threat of wildfires.

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.” 

When a horse dies in the Wyoming backcountry, sometimes the best way to keep it from attracting grizzly bears is using explosives to blow the carcass into tiny pieces. In fact, the U.S. Forest Service even has a how-to instruction guide how to best do that, titled “Obliterating Animal Carcasses With Explosives.” But it’s so hot and dry right now, the Forest Service can’t explode the carcasses of two horses that slipped and tumbled to their deaths Friday on a remote trail near Cody out of fear that the blasts would ignite a wildfire. …the reasoning behind exploding carcasses is brutally simple. …If the blasting goes well, the carcass is completely disintegrated, Crosby Davidson, a Forest Service regional blast expert, told Cowboy State Daily. “Later, you might find a bear licking the dirt, but there’s nothing for him to defend, so he behaves differently than if there’s a whole carcass.”

To understand the controversy around cutting Washington’s older trees, you have to get to know an economic supply line, from tree to timber to cash. There are the trees and forests themselves, then the timber cruisers and surveyors, the loggers, the millworkers, the timber town residents, the local beneficiaries of timber sales, from hospitals to libraries, the county commissioners and other officials — and the logging opponents. …We met the employees at the Washington Department of Natural Resources who lay out a sale, as well as loggers cutting trees so big on slopes so steep that some of the logging equipment was chained to a bulldozer to keep it from toppling downhill. Then we went out with opponents ripping down timber sale boundary markers to foil the sale of a forest on the Olympic Peninsula.

…Republicans in the U.S. House – including Oregon’s two Republican representatives – are hoping Congress will pass a bill before year’s end that would tackle increasingly large wildfires in the West by scaling back environmental regulations to make it easier to log and cut vegetation in federal forests… the “Fix Our Forests Act” passed the U.S. House on Sept. 24… It is expected to get a vote in the U.S. Senate after the November general election… Proponents say the bill would restore forest health, increase resiliency to catastrophic wildfires and protect communities by expediting environmental analyses while reducing frivolous lawsuits and step up restoration projects. But opponents, including environmentalists and Democrats, say it would open millions of acres of federal land to logging without scientific review or community input, potentially increasing the risk of wildfires while rolling back regulations to protect endangered and threatened species.