Region Archives: US West

Research from the University of Californiais shedding light on when and where to plant tree seedlings to help restore forests after high-severity wildfires, and it has a lot to do with shrubs.  In hotter, drier areas where natural regeneration is weaker, well-timed tree planting can boost recovery by up to 200%, but the outcome also depends on competition with shrubs, a paper in the journal Forest Ecology and Management concludes… In areas where a lot of shrubs are present, it’s best to plant seedlings within a year of a wildfire to avoid competition from these woody plants. In areas with fewer shrubs, planting three years after a fire is more effective because some of these woody plants would have grown back, but not so many to consume available nutrients and water.

A federal judge has thrown out an Oregon timber company’s lawsuit faulting the U.S. Forest Service for allegedly allowing the spread of a devastating 2020 wildfire. The negligence complaint filed by Freres Timber of Lyons must be dismissed because it challenges discretionary firefighting decisions for which the government can’t be held liable, according to U.S. District Judge Michael McShane. Though the Forest Service was operating under an official directive to fully suppress the Beachie Creek Fire, the exact methods were still up to the agency, the judge said. …Under federal law, U.S. government officials can be held liable for negligence and similar claims if they fail to carry out required actions, but not for certain discretionary decisions based on policy considerations. In this case, Freres Lumber alleged the Forest Service was required to maximize its response to the Beachie Creek Fire based on a formal “full suppression” directive and official agency fire management policy.

EUGENE, Ore. — A million dollars is heading to Eugene and the McKenzie River Valley to help with wildfire resiliency. Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden secured major investments to strengthen forest health and wildfire resiliency back in Spring of 2024. Among these areas strengthened by the investments are the protection of public lands and the environment, securing important programs for tribes, and supporting critical projects across Oregon communities. Funds from these investments have been awarded to the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) in the amount of $1 million towards wildfire resiliency projects. These projects will be in partnership with the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), McKenzie Fire and Rescue (MFR) and Eugene Springfield Fire (ESF).

EUGENE, Oregon — While city councils are on holiday break, Lane County Commissioners are scheduled to meet this week to hear feedback and vote on a supplemental budget, hear a presentation from timber industry representatives on its efforts to improve housing affordability and fire resiliency, continue a hearing on three proposed homes in forested land near Oakridge and vote on a contract to provide mental health services in the Lane County Juvenile Justice Center. …County commission meetings stream at this link.

In partnership with Stimson Lumber Company and the Idaho Department of Lands, nonprofit Trust for Public Land announced an easement agreement Wednesday that will protect 10,846 acres of working forests in Bonner and Boundary counties. Under the agreement, IDL holds the development rights to land owned and logged by Stimson Lumber Company, ensuring the easement areas will not be subdivided and will continue to contribute to the local timber industry. “By protecting over 10,000 acres of working forestland in northern Idaho, Trust for Public Land has ensured that these vital landscapes will be preserved for future generations,” said Trust for Public Land Northern Rockies Director Dick Dolan. …IDL Director Dustin Miller and Stimson Lumber Company President Andrew Miller expressed their commitment to preserving working forests in the area and protecting the longevity of Idaho’s timber industry. 

Oregon lawmakers meeting in a special session Thursday approved spending $218 million to pay off hundreds of unpaid invoices from contractors who worked during the historic 2024 wildfire season. …The Senate voted 25-2 in favor and the House voted 42-2. The bill specifically directs $191.5 million from the general fund to the Oregon Department of Forestry and $26.5 million to the Oregon Department of the State Fire Marshal. …Some Republicans blamed the extent of the wildfires on what they called “mismanagement” of the state forests. …Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale called on the head of the Department of Forestry, Cal Mukumoto, to resign, saying the special session was an indication of a failure “on every level” from the agency to communicate the issue in a timely manner. …Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s proposed budget recommends redirecting $150 million to the Department of Forestry and State Fire Marshal for the two-year budget that begins July 1.

Wind turbulence is a well-known factor in the complex wildland fire environment. Sometimes it is the wind shear over vegetation, buildings, or terrain, and other times it’s the buoyant forces from solar surface heating or thermal plume injections from the fire itself. For a smokejumper, parachuting from a low-flying aircraft in a remote and rugged landscape, turbulence near the ground at the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is of particular concern. Scientists at the Rocky Mountain Research Station have published a study on how to better predict terrain-induced turbulence to assist smokejumper operations. …This study concluded that WindNinja’s lesser-known ability to simulate wind turbulence could be of use for assessing smokejumper operations under moderate to high wind conditions. They also suggest that although this work focused on smoke jumping, real-time turbulence predictions from WindNinja could be useful for other near-surface firefighting aerial operations.

Oregon lawmakers will convene Thursday for a brief emergency session related to this year’s record-setting wildfire season. At the heart of the session are hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid bills owed to the workers who helped put out blazes… This year, wildfire touched over 1.9 million acres, making it Oregon’s most destructive fire season in modern times in terms of acres burned… In the end, Oregon spent a whopping $350 million fighting fires across the state… The Oregon Department of Forestry can usually pay contractors within a couple of months. But this year’s costs far exceeded what the state had on hand as it awaited federal reimbursements. The federal government helps pay for wildfires through disaster funds and reimburses the state whenever Oregon lends firefighting support on federally managed fires. But it can take years for those federal dollars to make their way to Oregon.

Some 250,000 acres of Maine fir trees are at risk of defoliation from a moth that could cause millions of dollars of harm to the state’s economy if ignored, forestry experts said during a webinar Wednesday. The spruce budworm is an emerging threat that has already been spotted in Aroostook County near the Canadian border earlier this year, affecting some 3,500 acres of trees, according to the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Forestry experts worry that the spruce budworm could spread quickly and damage up to 250,000 acres of Maine’s forests next year. As part of a webinar sponsored by the Maine State Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, they recommended early intervention with aerial pesticide spraying starting in May.

Oregon lawmakers meeting in a special session Thursday will vote on spending $218 million in general funds to pay off bills for the estimated $350 million in firefighting costs during the historic 2024 wildfire season that burned more than 1.9 million acres. The money would allow the state to process the remaining payments to vendors and allow the Department of Forestry and the State Fire Marshal to continue program operations through the end of the two-year budget cycle on June 30. “We have a responsibility to pay our bills to the brave individuals who helped protect our homes and property during this terrible wildfire season,” Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, said in a statement. “A narrow special session focused on this common goal is the best path forward.”

Marc Kramer

A new five-year partnership between Washington State University Vancouver and the U.S. Forest Service will give graduate and undergraduate students the opportunity to study wood and soil alongside professors and government scientists. The partnership will establish labs to study the relationship between soils, the local climate and the trees supported by the soil using stable isotope and trace element analysis. “It’s to find new ways, better ways, to identify illegal wood that’s coming into the United States,” said Christine Portfors, vice chancellor for research and graduate education. “This is a really unique opportunity to have scientists who work with the U.S. Forest Service on campus.” …Marc Kramer leads the organic geochemistry and stable isotope laboratory at the university. …“We’re providing new methods to help verify the origin of wood,” Kramer said. “ …Kramer said he anticipates the lab will run the first set of samples in early 2025.

After issuing a 60-day intent to sue in September, nonprofit environmental law group Earthjustice filed a formal complaint against federal agencies involved in the Bitterroot National Forest Plan. The complaint, filed on Tuesday, criticizes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service and the Bitterroot National Forest for failure to follow guidelines enforced by the Endangered Species Act and seeks to rule the plan as unlawful. …The lawsuit centers around the Bitterroot Forest Plan amendments’ erasure of road density limitations and how potential new road construction could impact grizzly bear and bull trout population in the Bitterroot. …Jim Miller, president of the Friends of the Bitterroot, told the Ravalli Republic in September that road densities in the Bitterroot Forest are “probably the biggest contributor to stream sedimentation, harming trout fisheries.”

Arizona – Surviving desert heat, alpine cold, and meager rainfall each year, two-needle pinyon pines (Pinus edulis) are the backbone of many forests in the southwestern United States. Their stout branches offer shade for bighorn sheep and sagebrush lizards, while their yearly crop of nuts has nourished humans for millennia. But 150 years of grazing, fire suppression, and other land-use changes have transformed these forests. In many areas, thickets of young trees are choking out woodlands once dominated by widely spaced pines more than a century old. … To help restore the traditional ecology of these dry woodlands, Arizona researchers worked with undergraduate students to remove the dense growths of saplings on land used by Navajo ranchers. …The researchers removed nearly two-thirds of the trees in the forest by thinning most pinyons with a trunk diameter under 25 centimeters…

KALISPELL, Mont. — The Flathead National Forest and the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation are working together to reduce wildfire risk through the Jackknife Project. The project is made possible by the Good Neighbor Authority, which allows the two agencies to plan and coordinate forest management projects. A Eureka company, Stoken Logging will harvest about 800 trees per acre and will leave about 100 to 250 trees per acre as part of a timber sale. The project spans over 1,000 acres on Good Creek Road and the harvest will allow residual trees to have more access to light water and nutrients. The reduction in trees will reduce the ability of wildfires to reach the top of trees, known as a crown fires.

GREATER LAKE TAHOE AREA, California – Each year aerial observers for the USDA Forest Service ride in small fixed-wing aircraft… looking for the yellow or red-brown of dried or discolored foliage. It’s their job to observe, survey and report conifer and hardwood mortality, defoliation, and other damage. They also note several other factors, including the damage type, affected forest area percentage and severity, impacted tree species, as well as the probable damage-causing agent. …Forest land managers use the annual mortality data to plan harvests in order to salvage recently killed trees or trees in beetle-threatened areas before the beetles can get to them. Others use it for research, fire behavior forecasting, invasive insect and disease monitoring and much more. …This year, observers recorded 439,000 acres of mortality, which is less than the five-year annual average of 730,000 acres. …The aerial survey reports are available publicly on the Forest Service’s website. 

J.P. Morgan Asset Management announced that institutional investors advised by the firm’s wholly-owned timber investment manager, Campbell Global, have led the acquisition of 40,800 productive acres of high-quality, commercial timberland located on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. The firm has named the property Tyee to acknowledge the Cascadia region’s indigenous Native American history. Campbell Global was acquired by J.P. Morgan Asset Management in 2021 and is recognized as a pioneer in timberland management, having managed more than five million acres worldwide for pension funds, foundations and other institutional investors since inception. Tyee will be continuously managed for both carbon capture and timber production to meet growing demand for sustainable building products and other uses. Some details of the property include 100% certified in accordance with Sustainable Forestry Initiative standards.

There’s a whole lot of partnering going on in Alaska. The Alaska Region is known for its authentic relationships with local, state, tribal and other federal agencies and communities of all sizes. That same dedication to collaboration is evident in the realm of fire protection. This September, Forest Service employees and staff from the State of Alaska, Division of Forestry & Fire Protection toured Alaska to see how federal funding is making impactful, local changes in fire prevention and community resilience. These efforts demonstrate a successful collaboration between the agency and partners such as local fire departments, boroughs, and the state, showcasing how partnerships can protect communities from wildfire hazards. …The tour included visits to six woody debris disposal sites …The partnership displayed through these federal and state programs highlight the power of collaboration, innovation, and the lasting impact of federal funding in building fire-adapted communities across Alaska.

I retired in 2002 as deputy chief of the US Forest Service with 35 years of experience, and I was stunned, happily, when President Biden unveiled Executive Order 14072… though, an immediate question arose: “Will the White House tell the Forest Service how to implement it or ask them?” My experience told me that unless the administration’s environmental overseers kept the Forest Service on a very tight leash, the Forest Service would likely do as little as possible for as long as possible. My question arises because when it comes to protecting… old-growth forests, the US Forest Service has proved a begrudging landlord. …Where do we stand, knowing the Trump team will surely kill any policy aimed at protecting forests? …I suggest the Forest Service suspend action and allow their policy to remain, unfinished, for now. Do not give Trump or this Congress an opportunity to kill it.

As California’s wildlife crisis deepens amid forester job shortages, the state has launched a new initiative to build up its forestry ranks. California has 33 million acres of forest land; for the 4 million of these that are highly managed, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) has launched the California Forestry Sector Jobs Initiative to recruit workers, particularly from underrepresented communities, to fill about 1,000 forestry jobs. These jobs, ranging across vocational and educational levels, include logging, manufacturing, engineering, bioenergy production, forest management, mapping, park guiding, environmental analysis, biology, accounting, HR, electrical work and distribution driving… Calforests, representing the state’s private forestry business sector, received a CAL FIRE grant to carry out the jobs initiative.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s ruling to allow a controversial forest thinning project on Pine Mountain to proceed. Los Padres National Forest (LPNF) officials say the work will help with wildfire prevention and control, while environmental groups lament the destruction of mature trees near popular campgrounds and rock-climbing areas north of Ojai. Several government agencies, environmental groups and local businesses raised concerns about the U.S. Forest Service plan, including the Ojai City Council, Ventura County Board of Supervisors, Los Padres ForestWatch, Keep the Sespe Wild and Ventura-based outdoor apparel company Patagonia, which helped lead a public-awareness campaign on the issue. In 2022, the coalition filed lawsuits against the U.S. Forest Service, arguing the logging and chaparral-clearing project would violate environmental laws, harm vulnerable wildlife and cause irreparable damage to intact roadless areas. It also claimed the project went against scientific evidence regarding fire ecology.

OREGON — The fires that burned down the Santiam Canyon over Labor Day weekend in 2020 were a disaster for the communities from Idanha all the way to Stayton. Recovery started right away, but rebuilding homes and public infrastructure has been tragically slow, delaying the healing of the community. Likewise in the burned forests; healing started right away, but logging those burned forests delayed healing. Oregon forests… need fire to be healthy. …When we tend a forest, log it or choose not to tend it, we accept (maybe unconsciously or without really thinking about it) that there’s a chance it will burn. Sure, when the fire does come, it might burn bright and consume everything or it might burn with a light touch, knowing it will come back again. …It is what happens in the forest afterwards that’s up to us. …decision-makers need to stop peeling the scab and end rampant post-fire logging.