SKAMANIA COUNTY, Washington — Sawmills have been closing across the Pacific Northwest over the past 30 years. There is just one left in Skamania County, down from six during its logging heyday. Limited log supply from the region’s national forests has cut off their raw material, while cheap lumber from Canada has taken market share for their finished product. Owners of the remaining mills have high hopes that President Trump will deliver relief by increasing logging in national forests and raising trade protections against Canadian exports. Although the latter can be achieved with a stroke of the president’s pen, meaningfully boosting the federal timber harvest could take years and be impeded by litigation and red tape. …US sawyers have argued successfully in trade cases that their Canadian competitors are supplied with subsidized government logs, and that they offer two-by-fours over the border for less than they sell them at home. [to access the full story a WSJ subscription is required]
Wildfires are getting more catastrophic and expensive. For the last decade, Oregon policymakers haven’t been able to agree on how to pay for them. And while lawmakers emerged from this year’s legislative session with a plan to fund wildfire prevention, there’s still no dedicated funding to fight large fires like the Cram Fire, which has burned nearly 100,000 acres in Central Oregon. The total wildfire budget for the next two years is less than the state spent last year alone. And in some cases, costs that used to be borne by insurance plans and private landowners are now the responsibility of all Oregonians. A similar phrase cropped up during multiple interviews with policymakers: The consensus lawmakers reached this year is a good “first step.” What’s less clear is if it’s enough. ….“Oregonians writ large, are going to be the ones to pay for it,” said Casey Kulla, with Oregon Wild.
Thousands of lightning strikes have been recorded in California recently as portions of the state gear up for more storms, bringing with them potential wildfires. The state’s northern half saw 1,681 lightning strikes between Sunday, July 27, and Monday, July 28, Cal Fire reported, sparking 23 wildfires. Cal Fire units Lassen-Modoc, Shasta-Trinity, and Siskiyou responded to 14 new fires, none of which grew significantly, Cal Fire said as of July 28. Yet, this month, more lightning strikes in short periods have occurred in the state. The U.S. Forest Service Shasta-Trinity National Forest reported on July 26 that Northern California experienced 18,863 lightning strikes due to storms in the area the evening before. …The National Interagency Fire Center has tracked the number of fires in Northern California and Southern California caused by lightning in recent years, showing that thousands of fires in the state and nationwide are caused by nature.
The U.S. Forest Service will abandon its nine regional offices as its parent Department of Agriculture consolidates out of Washington, D.C., according to a memo released on Thursday by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. “President Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the beltway and into great American cities across the country,” Rollins said in a statement announcing the reorganization. “We will do so through a transparent and common-sense process that preserves USDA’s critical health and public safety services the American public relies on. We will do right by the great American people who we serve and with respect to the thousands of hardworking USDA employees who so nobly serve their country.” The reorganization plan left many Forest Service experts wondering what the benefit would be, including former Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, who served during the George W. Bush administration.
Since the mid-1990s, so-called blooms of bark beetles have affected nearly 80% of Colorado’s 4.2 million acres of pine forest, reducing decades-old trees into firewood. In the process, they’ve literally laid the groundwork for some of the state’s most devastating forest fires, from the 2016 Beaver Creek Fire in Walden to the 2020 East Troublesome Fire in Grand County. Despite rendering postcard views into wildfire fodder, West does not call these beetles a pest. Like fire, they’re just a part of nature here, filling a vital biological niche in their native habitat. In the long term, experts say they even make forests healthier. “Bark beetles serve as the ecological sanitizers of the forest,” said West, who helps manage Colorado’s 24 million acres of state forestland. One paper, 
If state funding for forest health and wildfire prevention isn’t ramped back up in the next legislative session, it could hinder efforts to prevent severe fires in the coming years, Washington’s top public lands official and others warned this week. The state Legislature approved House Bill 1168 in 2021, which committed $500 million over eight years to the state Department of Natural Resources for wildfire preparedness and response. State spending had largely kept up with that target until this year, with the department receiving $115 million in the last two-year budget and $130 million in the one before that. Then this year, as lawmakers confronted a budget shortfall, they slashed the wildfire preparedness funding to just $60 million for the next two years. The Department of Natural Resources says it’s prepared for this fire season and has money left over from past years. But the funding rollback has sparked concerns.
The state’s top public lands official is urging lawmakers to restore the spending to previous levels after they cut it by about half this year. If state funding for forest health and wildfire prevention isn’t ramped back up in the next legislative session, it could hinder efforts to prevent severe fires in the coming years, Washington’s top public lands official and others warned this week. The state Legislature approved House Bill 1168 in 2021, which committed $500 million over eight years to the state Department of Natural Resources for wildfire preparedness and response. State spending had largely kept up with that target until this year, with the department receiving $115 million in the last two-year budget and $130 million in the one before that. Then this year, as lawmakers confronted a budget shortfall, they slashed the wildfire preparedness funding to just $60 million for the next two years. 
The restoration of gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park has helped revive an aspen tree population unique to the region, a new study has found. Quaking aspen, one of the few deciduous tree species in the northern Rocky Mountain ecosystem, is once again thriving, after suffering severe decline during the 20th century, according to a new study. “This is a remarkable case of ecological restoration,” lead author, Luke Painter, at Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences, said. The decline in aspen growth occurred in tandem with a surge in Rocky Mountain elk, which had lost a key predator following the elimination of wolves from the region by 1930. …At the same time… aspen recovery hasn’t been uniform across northern Yellowstone — and the growth is subject to numerous potential threats including climate change and encroachment of coniferous trees, are possible such factors. And other herbivores have increased in the region.
The state of Washington will get about $20 million for wildfire fighting efforts after a months-long delay, a Washington congresswoman confirmed Thursday. The Trump administration distributed $280 million in federal funding to forestry agencies across the country, according to the office of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington. The money will help fund the Washington State Department of Natural Resources’ efforts to train and equip wildland firefighters across the state. “The state of Washington is in the middle of an active and dangerous wildfire season,” Cantwell said in a news release. “After questioning the Chief of the Forest Service and the Secretary of Agriculture, I am pleased that Washington — and all states — are finally receiving the funding they need to prepare for and respond to wildfires this summer and in the future.”
Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) in central Colorado has been dealing with a mountain pine beetle infestation for the last two years, but the Gunnison County resort is fighting back using small packets of pheromones stapled to trees. Beetles were first detected mountainside at CBMR in 2023… During the 2024 season, ground crews revisited large areas of lodgepole pine within and around CBMR’s boundaries, confirming limited but recent beetle activity among the trees. …But now CBMR Mountain Operations, alongside rangers with the U.S. Forest Service, are fighting the beetles back with the help of verbenone pheromone packets. Verbenone is an anti-aggregation pheromone produced by mountain pine beetles to indicate a tree has reached maximum capacity, letting other beetles know there are no resources available to consume within the tree.
The Salt River Project has extended its partnership with the state to thin watersheds, which will also improve fire protection for communities in Rim Country and the White Mountains. In the past five years, The Valley utility has worked with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management to thin 35,000 acres of overgrown forest, including a portion of the watershed of the C.C. Cragin Reservoir. SRP has also signed long-term contracts to buy electricity from NovoBiopower, the state’s only biomass burning power plant. The Snowflake power plant remains crucial to forest restoration efforts by providing one of the few markets for the tons of low-value biomass removed on each acre treated. SRP issued a release this week stating it hopes to fund the treatment of another 52,000 acres in the next five years. SRP also helped thin overgrown forests outside Payson, adding to a buffer zone protecting the community from wildfires.
A major logging project in Montana can continue after a federal judge on Tuesday denied a motion for a preliminary injunction filed by four environmental groups. Last year, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved the Round Star logging project, which covers 28,300 acres of land about 13 miles west of the city of Whitefish. …The agencies also approved the construction of nearly 20 miles of permanent roads in the national forest. …The four conservation groups — Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, Council on Wildlife and Fish and Yellowstone to Uintas Connection — sued to stop the logging in January, and filed their motion for a preliminary injunction months later. By that time, the logging was already underway. …Though the timing of the motion wasn’t a dealbreaker for the motion, DeSoto also found that the plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed on the merits of the case.
After months of deliberation, a years-old vision to restore local control of some of Pacific and Wahkiakum counties’ most productive timberlands is a step closer to becoming a reality. Last Tuesday, representatives from the Columbia Land Trust presented to both sets of commissioners a near-complete draft of the charter for the Upper Grays River Community Forest. The document lays out the legal framework and governance structure for a working forest in the upper Grays River watershed, which will straddle the boundary between the two counties. “The purpose… is to provide a legal entity… to undertake, assist with and otherwise facilitate the acquisition, ownership, maintenance, harvest, and management of a community forest or forests within Pacific County and Wahkiakum County to provide economic, environmental and community benefits to the public,” the charter’s fourth article reads.
On March 1, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order directing the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to develop plans to increase timber production on federal lands. The order was motivated by two stated priorities: expanding the timber supply and addressing rising wildfire risks. The US Forest Service has responded with a goal of increasing timber offered for sale by 25 percent over the next four to five years. This report puts the Trump administration’s actions into context by reviewing the history of harvest from federal lands and evaluating current forest inventories and treatment needs. It asks: What would be the effect on wildfire risk if federal land management agencies increased harvests by 25 percent? Opportunities for harvests that successfully mitigate risk may be limited by the absence of active timber markets, the availability of a qualified workforce, and the economics of fuel removals.
An unusual alliance of Republican lawmakers and animal rights advocates, together with others, is creating storm clouds for a plan to protect one threatened owl by killing a more common one. Last August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a plan to shoot roughly 450,000 barred owls in California, Oregon and Washington over three decades. The barred owls have been out-competing imperiled northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest, as well as California spotted owls, pushing them out of their territory. Supporters of the approach — including conservation groups and prominent scientists — believe the cull is necessary to avert disastrous consequences for the spotted owls. Last month, The Times has found, federal officials canceled three owl-related grants to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife totaling roughly $1.1 million, including one study that would remove barred owls from over 192,000 acres in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.
In 2023 and 2024, the hottest years on record, more than 78 million acres of forests burned around the globe. The fires sent veils of smoke and several billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, subjecting millions of people to poor air quality. Extreme forest-fire years are becoming more common because of climate change, new research suggests. Boreal forests lost more than two times the canopy area in 2023-24 compared with the period between 2002 and 2022, the study found. Tropical forests saw three times as much loss, and North American forests lost nearly four times as much canopy, mostly because of Canada’s wildfires. Significant losses were in remote forests, far from human activities. That isolation suggests fires are increasing primarily because of climate change, said Calum Cunningham, a fire geographer at the University of Tasmania who was not involved with the study. “Chronic changes in climate are making these forests more conducive to burning,” Dr. Cunningham said. [a paid subscription is required to read this article]
Conservation groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on July 17 for denying Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections to the north Oregon Coast population of red tree voles. The lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Bird Alliance of Oregon, Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands, claims the USFWS’ February 2024 decision that the population was not warranted for ESA protections deprives it of critical protections necessary to ensure its survival. “Red tree voles have graced Oregon’s coastal old-growth forests for thousands of years, but we could lose them forever if they don’t get Endangered Species Act protections soon,” said Ryan Shannon, a senior attorney in the Center for Biological Diversity’s endangered species program. …Due to decades of logging, this population has been eliminated from most of its historic range. It also faces an existential threat from wildfire that is worsening under climate change, according to the lawsuit. 
The Oregon Department of Forestry is teaming up with the owner of 33,000 acres of private timberland west of Bend to test a new technology that reduces the amount of smoke produced during pile burning activities, and reduces wildfire risk. A pilot project is set to be held in October on Shanda Asset Management’s Skyline Forest, a vast swath of timberland that has long been the target of conservation efforts. The project entails using an air curtain burner — a container-sized unit that burns wood slash from thinning projects. Instead of releasing particulate matter into the atmosphere, these units capture smoke and produce biochar. It also reduces the risk of a wildfire caused by embers escaping from burning piles. Another advantage is limiting the spread of tree disease and insects — air curtain burners have proven to be better than pile burning when containment is needed.
DOLORES, Colo.— Forest health advocates have finalized an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service that will preserve tens of thousands of the largest, oldest ponderosa pine trees in Colorado’s San Juan National Forest. “Large, mature trees are critical for climate resilience, habitat and forest health” said John Rader, public lands program director for the San Juan Citizens Alliance. “We are pleased to reach a common-sense agreement that helps safeguard our forests from climate change and biodiversity loss.” In June 2023 San Juan Citizens Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Forest Service in federal court over its approval of a nearly 23,000-acre timber project in the Dolores District of the San Juan National Forest. The project area is a watershed for the Dolores River and provides important habitat for elk, mule deer and raptor, including imperiled goshawks. It was extensively logged throughout the 1900s, and few mature ponderosa pines remain.
When seeking to make forests more fire resilient, removing fuels from the landscape is a tough task to make cost-effective. Thinning and limbing trees during fuels reduction treatments will sometimes produce marketable timber, but more often will produce small-diameter wood pieces that have traditionally been considered unmarketable. These pieces are typically chipped, masticated, or pile burned, and have long been considered ‘wood waste’. California researchers, industry leaders, and private forest landowners have been looking at ways to transform forest wood waste, particularly in wildfire-prone areas, into sustainable products. Utilizing forest biomass for building materials, soil amendments, and clean energy is a key strategy to economically incentivize improving forest conditions and can address both public and private industry needs. The state has also been making moves to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and aims to eliminate emissions entirely by 2045. 
…The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. July 29 due to thunderstorms producing abundant lightning and wind gusts up to 50-60 mph, in combination with dry fuels, the alert said. A red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will occur shortly. NWS also issued a fire weather advisory from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. July 29 due to potential lightning from thunderstorms that could spark new fires and wind gusts that could impact new and existing fires. …The Piper Fire sparked on July 28 from thunderstorms 3 miles northeast of Skookum Creek Campground in the Three Sisters Wilderness. It was estimated to be 20 acres as of July 28. …The High Horn Fire in Malheur County had burned 120 acres as of July 28. …The Skyline Fire, also burning in Malheur County, had burned 38.5 acres as of July 28.
The country’s largest wildfire this year has burned over 95,740 acres, fire officials in central Oregon said Sunday, as ground crews made progress to partially contain a blaze that could still intensify to become a so-called megafire. Officials said that the massive blaze — which has drawn more than 900 fire personnel, destroyed a handful of homes and prompted evacuations in two counties — was 49% contained after crews struggled to keep back the flames last week. …Cooler temperatures and higher humidity over the weekend are expected to continue early this week, potentially aiding firefighting efforts, but the sheer size of the fire has been staggering: If it grows to at least 100,000 acres, it would be classified as a megafire, becoming the first one in the U.S. in 2025, said the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, which coordinates the country’s wildland firefighting operations. Oregon saw six wildfires reach megafire status last year
MOUNT HOOD, Oregon — The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday afternoon issued a Level 3 (go now) evacuation order for a new, five-acre wildfire on Mount Hood that was first reported late in the morning about three miles northwest of Timothy Lake. As of 4 p.m., the evacuation order does not affect the campgrounds and trails immediately around Timothy Lake, a popular recreational spot about 90 minutes from Portland. But helicopters are scooping large buckets of water from the lake to suppress the fire. Firefighters on the ground also have started an “aggressive initial attack,” the U.S. Forest Service said. The evacuation order affects a two-mile radius around the much smaller Dinger Lake and includes Anvil Lake and the Anvil Lake Trail 724. The order so far only affects remote campsites and hikers. …Dubbed the Anvil fire, it is burning near Forest Road 5820.