Region Archives: US West

Driving around parts of southern El Dorado County, you can’t miss the trucks. Everywhere near the areas ravaged by the 2021 Caldor fire that leveled the community of Grizzly Flats, you see semis hauling trees and Ford F-150s with their company logos. Residents could understandably wonder: Who is paying for all this work? And who is profiting from it? It’s mostly the federal government and insurance companies writing the checks, meaning taxpayers and insurance customers are footing the bill. …The economic costs of a disaster to state and local governments are much discussed, but less explored are the economic benefits to governments and contractors. …Take logging, for example. Logging in federal and state parks is prohibited, and it is cost-prohibitive on residential property. …When a wildfire sweeps through an area, however, the burned trees that remain present many hazards. … As part of the debris removal process, these hazardous trees are removed.

CALIFORNIA — A potentially game-changing effort to prevent megafires is rolling out in the woods up past Sonora. The federal government granted $55 million in April for prescribed burning, selective logging and other work in and near the Stanislaus National Forest. It grew out of a consensus among local business and environmental groups that the trees and brush have become unnaturally dense. They hope to create hundreds of jobs in the mountains and modestly boost the lumber supply for housing in Stanislaus County and beyond. They also could enhance part of the watershed for farms and cities in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. The project could run until 2030. …Environmental groups had long resisted logging because it took too many big trees. They came around as SPI revamped its mills to use smaller pines, cedars and firs.

ELKINS — A new program is now available for landowners with a minimum of 30 acres of wooded land, to improve forest health on their property. The program, the Family Forest Carbon Program, is a carbon program designed to help forest owners find resources and adopt long-term sustainable forest practices that will improve the health of their forest over time. Interested landowners can log on to familyforestcarbon.org to learn more and see if their property and goals are a fit. Enrollees receive annual payments to implement improved forest practices, as well as expert consultation from a local forester who can help identify tree species, provide advice on invasives and will help write a forest management plan customized for their property. Enrollment is for 20 years, and annual payments are determined by property size and forest conditions.

Tyler Freeman by Eddie Moore

SANTA FE, N.M. — As more than 3,000 firefighters in northern New Mexico continued to battle the nation’s largest active wildfire Sunday, federal forest officials worried about future flash floods, landslides and destructive ash from the burn scar. The 7-week-old fire, the largest in New Mexico history, remained 50% contained after charring 492 square miles (1,274 square kilometers) in rugged terrain east of Santa Fe. …Micah Kiesow, team leader and a soil and watershed program manager with the Santa Fe National Forest, said steep mountain slopes had acted like a sponge before the fire. “Post-fire in some of these areas, especially the high soil burn severity areas and the moderate, we’re looking at now a steep slope that’s more like a parking lot,” Kiesow told the Santa Fe New Mexican. He said that could signal an “extreme change in watershed response” during monsoon season.

The federal suspension of prescribed burns pending a review of how recent fires lit during extreme drought escaped boundaries is reverberating in the West—and complicating Colorado efforts to revive ailing forests and reduce the severity of wildfires. Foresters for years have favored more, not less, deliberate controlled burning as the most affordable and ecologically sound way to boost forest and grassland resilience. The 90-day pause that U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore has declared—responding to recent mishaps where prescribed fires blew out of control—will delay projects to reduce risk across 14,000 acres in Colorado and 18,500 acres in the Rocky Mountain region, according to federal data. …The federal halt also is raising concerns at a deeper level that climate warming and extreme aridity increasingly may jeopardize the use of prescribed fire due to safety concerns.

On Wednesday, a federal court halted a U.S. Forest Service logging and road-building project in the Kootenai National Forest. The case centers around whether the Forest Service properly evaluated the Ripley project’s impact on grizzly bears. The project includes over 10,000 acres of commercial logging, construction of 19 miles of new permanent and temporary roads and over 90 miles of maintenance and reconstruction of existing roads, according to court documents. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies argued that the Forest Service skirted its responsibilities to properly evaluate the impact of road construction and work on the small threatened grizzly bear population in the bordering Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem, which is located in northwest Montana.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A new airtanker base in southern Colorado is officially open after a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Wednesday at Colorado Springs Airport. The Colorado Springs Airtanker Base will accommodate airtankers of various sizes and have the capacity to deliver up to 85,600 gallons of retardant per hour within a 300-mile radius. Officials with the City of Colorado Springs and USDA Forest Service said the new base is operational and has already supported recent fire suppression efforts. …Congress awarded the USDA Forest Service funding for the base as part of the 2018 Omnibus Bill, according to a release from Colorado Springs.

Northern New Mexico’s still raging wildfire—now the largest in that state’s modern history—did not start out as entirely wild.  The wind-fueled blaze partly began as an intentional or prescribed U.S. Forest Service burn near picturesque Hermits Peak outside of Las Vegas, N.M. Such fires are set to thin forests of built-up fuel, restore forest health and prevent much bigger fires.  …There’s already a tremendous amount of backlash,” says James Biggs, who teaches wildfire ecology and fire behavior at New Mexico Highlands University whose campus in Las Vegas, N.M., is near the southern edge of the wildfire.  Biggs says ironically the scale and impact of this blaze underscores precisely why the Western U.S. needs to do more intentional burning after a century-plus policy of suppressing nearly every forest fire, which has resulted in the build up of dangerous and untenable amounts of fuel across forests.

Last week, the most comprehensive changes to Oregon’s forestry regulations in 50 years were ceremonially signed into law. What is remarkable about the bipartisan Private Forest Accord is not just that it is the most significant update to the Forest Practices Act since 1971, governing the management of more than 10 million acres of private forestland, but how the legislation came to fruition. …Old adversaries setting aside their differences and coming together to solve tough problems. Under the Accord, the timber industry and conservation groups reached an unprecedented agreement on the most effective ways to improve protections for the aquatic habitat needed by native fish and amphibians. …The rules that implement these changes still require approval by the Board of Forestry and need to be communicated to more than 65,000 forest landowners in every corner of Oregon. This will be followed by years of scientific monitoring and fine tuning.

A New Mexico facility where researchers work to restore forests devastated by fires faced an almost cruelly ironic threat: The largest wildfire burning in the U.S. was fast approaching. Owen Burney and his team knew they had to save what they could. Atop their list was a priceless bank of millions of ponderosa pine, spruce and other conifer seeds meant to help restore fire-ravaged landscapes across the American West. Next were tens of thousands of tree sprouts, many of which were sown to make them more drought tolerant, that were loaded onto trailers and trucked to a greenhouse about 100 miles away. New Mexico State University’s Forestry Research Center in the mountain community of Mora stands at the forefront of a major undertaking to rebuild more resilient forests. …Firefighters have managed to keep the flames from reaching the center’s greenhouses and there’s a chance some of the seedlings left behind could be salvaged.

Firefighter Christian Cortes

It’s still spring, but wildfires are already burning in Colorado and other Western states like New Mexico, where a 2,000-person crew is racing to contain the largest wildfire in that state’s history. …Hillary Johnson is the type of firefighter that experts say the federal government should be doing everything it can to hang onto. Johnson joined the U.S. Forest Service in 2015 and worked her way up from an engine unit to become a smokejumper, an elite class of firefighters who parachute in to fight dangerous fires in some of the nation’s most rugged terrain. …Not anymore. “I’m out,” she said in a recent interview. …In a few days, she’ll start a new job as a software developer. …Officials with the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, which employ many federal firefighters, acknowledge struggling to hold on to their staff while competing with more predictable and better-paying local, state and private firefighting jobs.

LA HONDA, California — To log or not to log?  That was the question facing the San Francisco YMCA about Camp Jones Gulch, a popular summer camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains. …In the late 1800s, the property was an old logging operation. The camp’s current dining hall housed a sawmill that helped rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. But in 1930, the land was sold to the YMCA to be used as a summer camp. …But at one point, the camp needed money to fix up some of the old vintage cabins and facilities. In 2006, the YMCA applied for a timber harvest permit to log the redwood trees on the 928-acre property. …An environmental land trust called the Sempervirens Fund has offered to buy the camp’s timber rights for $9.6 million in order to preserve the trees from harvest or development in perpetuity.

Wildlife advocates are suing the U.S. Forest Service to stop another logging project in core grizzly bear habitat of the Kootenai National Forest. On Tuesday, wildlife organizations sued the U.S. Forest Service and the Kootenai National Forest in Missoula federal court over the lack of grizzly bear habitat analysis in the decision to okay the Knotty Pine Project north of Troy. The plaintiffs include Center for Biological Diversity, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Yaak Valley Forest Council, WildEarth Guardians and Native Ecosystems Council. Approved on March 24 by Kootenai Forest supervisor Chadwick Benson, the 56,000-acre project would log more than 5,000 acres over 10 years – including 57 acres of old-growth forest and 14 clearcuts of more than 40 acres, with one exceeding 220 acres – for the purpose of harvesting 29 million board-feet of lumber.

Amanda Sullivan-Astor

The Pacific Northwest is a leader in climate-change solutions, and it’s no surprise as to why. Oregon’s economy and businesses rely on our natural resources, like wood products, to provide family-wage jobs and ensure a bright future for all Oregonians.  Unfortunately, our state is on the front lines of another, less-positive issue following Gov. Kate Brown’s new regulations on fuel sources in Oregon.   …These new rules regulate fuel suppliers and stationary fuel users (such as manufacturers) across the state, which followed an executive order issued by Brown in 2020.  …That’s why Associated Oregon Loggers recently joined a petition asking our state courts to weigh in on whether or not Brown and DEQ have overstepped their authority. We believe Brown and DEQ cannot rewrite existing statutes and authorities without the input of community-elected legislators. 

Oregon could be in store for a difficult wildfire season because of a multi-year drought and a national labor shortage squeezing available fire personnel. Gov. Kate Brown and state leaders voiced concerns on Monday. …The biggest challenge facing Oregon this year, leaders say, is drought. Brown has already declared drought emergencies in 15 Oregon counties this year, the most of her tenure for this time of year. About half the state is in extreme drought or worse, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Late-season rain and snow have helped stave off the start of wildfire season in some parts of the state, but it may have also contributed to the growth of “fine fuels” like invasive grasses that could drive large fires, especially east of the Cascades. …Adding to the challenge this year is a labor shortage that’s affecting firefighting capacity nationwide.

In New Mexico, the massive Calf Canyon-Hermits Peaks Fire is now officially the state’s largest recorded wildfire in modern history, eclipsing the 297,845 acre Whitewater-Baldy Fire Complex of 2012. On Monday morning fire officials listed Calf Canyon-Hermits peak at 298,060 acres. Fanned by erratic and unpredictable winds and growing by more than 90,000 acres in the past week, Calf Canyon-Hermits Peak fire has already burned more acres than burned last year in all of New Mexico. Spring is historically a busy time for wildfires in the Southwest, before the summer monsoons arrive around the Fourth of July, if they do. But this year, as in recent ones, large fires began igniting in the region at least a month early due to an extended drought made worse by human-caused climate change.

PORTLAND, Ore.–Global manufacturer celebrates milestone by reflecting on its roots and heritage – the story of a man, a timber beetle and a saw chain design that revolutionized the forestry industry and shapes it still today. In 1947, forester Joe Cox observed the C-shaped jaws of a timber beetle larva deftly chewing through wood. This was the inspiration for his “Cox Chipper Chain,” which he quietly invented in the basement of his home in Portland, Oregon. That same year, Cox started the Oregon Saw Chain Corp. to produce his saw chain – from a basement startup to a global manufacturer. Over time, Cox and his saw chain revolutionized the timber industry, and today the company he founded is the manufacturer of the World’s #1 Saw Chain. The company – known today as Oregon Tool – has grown into a multinational organization with numerous acquisitions and mergers. 

Aerial LIDAR scans make it easy to see the difference between a fire-resistant forest and one where fire has been suppressed. …A set of remarkable LIDAR scans of Yosemite National Park in California, published by forest ecologists at the University of Washington and the remote imaging company NV5 Geospatial in EOS this month, offers a glimpse into the subtle distinctions in forests—and the huge consequences for wildfire–across an area of 100 square miles. …Using scans of Yosemite taken between 2010 and 2019, forest ecologists at the University of Washington were able to map how fires change the fabric of a landscape. …And ecologists now know that forests that burn  look very different from those that don’t. In the mixed pine and fir ecosystem that covers most of Yosemite, repeated fires once thinned out small trees, creating a patchwork of clumps of mature forest and open meadow.

The International Concatonated Order of Hoo-Hoo celebrates 130 years with their annual convention, hosted this year in Sacramento, California. The Sacramento Club, #109 has an exciting slate of activities planned for their guests. The Embassy Suites Hotel in historic Old Sacramento will be headquarters for the Gold Rush themed event. Plans are underway to make this one of the best conventions in Hoo-Hoo memory! We’re going to highlight the incredible history, scenery and hospitality that Sacramento and Northern California have to offer. Our plan is to show off Sacramento’s new up and coming urban downtown. To bring to light the area as a leader in farm-to-fork dining with a train ride reception and dinner at the California State Railroad Museum and to highlight the rich history and to have some fun with a lumber themed mystery theatre dinner on board the Delta King, an old time paddlewheel ship moored in Old Sacramento. 

A group of activists known as Redwood Forest Defense has been occupying treetops in northern California as a form of non-violent protest to block the logging of redwood forests. Their struggle pits them against the Green Resource Diamond Company, which has been logging in the region since 2020. Portland-based filmmakers Lawrence Lerew and Derek Knowles directed the short film, “Sentinels,” which is now streaming on the L.A. Times website. They join us to talk about the making of their new film.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the parent agency of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), has reduced the number of trees that are available for sale to commercial operations from the Black Hills National Forest, leading to questions about the future of the area’s forest products industry.  “Basically, our commercial timber harvest program is really based on the need to really achieve the desired condition of the landscape,” said Scott Jacobson, public information officer with the Black Hills National Forest. …The USFS’s Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) released a report on the sustainability of timber harvesting in the Black Hills National Forest last year. One of the main findings was that previous harvest levels aren’t sustainable and should be reduced. It also states that historically, allowing for the forest to recover provides opportunities to adjust future harvest levels.

Ben Wudtke, Executive Director of Intermountain Forest Association knows a thing or two about how forest management affects fire. In the Black Hills National Forest, removal of trees has helped not only with parasites, but it has also made fires easier to control, he said. But now the U.S. Forest Service wants to reduce the number of trees that can be harvested, which Wudtke says puts the BHNF at risk of fires like the one in New Mexico and those that in California, Oregon, Idaho and other western states where logging is severely limited.  recent years. “There was a really concerted collaborative effort put forth to fight that war against the beetle. We didn’t win every battle but ultimately we won the war against the mountain pine beetle. That was all to target infestation. Ecologically, when you reduce insect infestation, typically, you reduce the risk of high severity of wildfire as well,” he said.

Arizona’s early start to the wildfire season is just the latest example of suffering the consequences of the 20th century strategy that suppressed blazes and let forests grow abnormally dense. Add historic drought, extreme heat and the results are predictable.  Yet it’s not too late to make northern Arizona’s forests more resilient and resistant to fire. Doing so also brings the added benefit of increasing water supplies and battling climate change.  Efforts are under way. A public-private partnership launched the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, or 4FRI, with a goal of restoring 2.4 million acres of national forest land. The program, for a variety of reasons, has never come close to reaching its annual goals.   Work by The Nature Conservancy in partnership with industry and the U.S. Forest Service has identified a suite of business practices and innovative efficiencies that may allow the initiative to achieve its potential and make efficient use of new federal funding.

California’s battle against catastrophic wildfires is pulling money from one of its key programs to fight climate change, with the total expected to soon hit $1.9 billion. California spent nearly $1.46 billion in cap-and-trade revenues to fill holes in fire agency budgets. Dollars funded controlled burns, the removal of dead vegetation, education efforts, improved evacuation routes, fire crew costs and more. Another $482 million is proposed for the coming years. Experts largely agree that the prevention work is needed. But there’s disagreement over whether the funding should come from cap-and-trade revenues. The revenues “should be prioritized for emissions reductions that are direct and that are guaranteed, such as replacing an internal combustion engine with a zero-emissions vehicle,” Brandon Dawson, director at Sierra Club California. Putting the money toward fire prevention is less of a sure thing, as “it’s impossible to tell … where the next wildfire is going to occur,” he said.