…It’s tempting to say that wildfire season has arrived, but there is no “season” anymore; wildfires occur year-round. Yet many of those who fight them are still employed for only part of the year by the federal government, a script that’s as outdated as the core procedures that guide the work of forest managers and firefighters on the front lines. Let’s stipulate that wildfires are part of the ecosystem in the western United States. They are nature’s way of clearing the forest floor and nourishing the soil. But after decades of misguided policy that pushed for extinguishing fires at first spark, combined with a warming, drier climate, wildfires have grown catastrophically in size, intensity and complexity. …Given the inevitability — and devastation — of wildfires, why have we not changed the way we fight them?

PENDLETON, Ore. — A federal judge on Monday approved a settlement between Central Oregon LandWatch, Oregon Wild and the U.S. Forest Service to exclude sensitive riparian habitat from a proposed logging project in the Ochoco National Forest, the two conservation groups announced. …With logging activities imminent, LandWatch and Oregon Wild took the Forest Service to court to hold the agency accountable to its own rules restricting logging along stream corridors, wetlands, and elk calving and rutting grounds. …At the eleventh hour, just before the case was to be argued before the U.S. District Court, the Ochoco National Forest came back to the negotiating table. …LandWatch and Oregon Wild said they celebrate the settlement agreement signed Monday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan in Pendleton as a success in their efforts to protect elk habitat, clean water, and wetlands from logging in the Ochoco National Forest.

Kyra Wolf

Wildfires in the high elevation Rocky Mountains are burning nearly twice as often as in the past, according to a new study that looks back at 2,000 years of data. While fires in the Rockies, like in the U.S. West, are part of the natural cycle, the study authors say the current rate of burning puts us in “uncharted territory.” Fires are expected to continue, and increase in frequency, as climate change leads to hotter and drier summers. The findings add to growing calls to address the causes of climate change, while simultaneously working to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of wildfires on human communities. Researchers from the University of Montana and the University of Wyoming used lake sediment and tree ring data to look back over 2,000 years of fire history in the subalpine, high elevation Rocky Mountains in the U.S. state of Colorado. 

In a grove of old-growth trees, in Northern California’s Humboldt Redwoods State Park, emerald-tinged light filters through a dense green canopy. …It’s May 2021, and surrounded by these 500-year-old giants, I feel a needed sense of calm. After a year of terrifying change, deadly disease, sociopolitical unrest and raging fire, the forest remains a place where I can come to be still. But stillness is an illusion here. The redwoods, seemingly unmovable, are always growing and adapting to the changing world around them. …We’ve been cutting down trees for thousands of years, but human impact reached new levels with the industrialization of the timber industry, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the rise in clear-cutting, in which entire forests are razed for more efficient timber production. …Now, less than 10 percent of old-growth forest remains in the United States.

Multiple agencies kick off long project intended to reduce wildfire danger in Upper Applegate Watershed. The work is part of an initiative targeting about 27,815 acres within the watershed called the Upper Applegate Watershed Restoration Project, which kicked off this week. It will take several years to complete and is intended to make the 52,000-acre area more resistant to flames, better protect nearby communities, and enhance forest ecosystems. …About 3,500 acres of the project will focus on hazardous fuels removal… Other projects will include riparian restoration, pollinator and sensitive plant habitat improvement, and restoration of recreation areas. …Collaborators include the Forest Service, BLM, Lomakatsi, ODF, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Nature Conservancy, and the Southern Oregon Forest Restoration Collaborative. Even the Klamath Bird Observatory is involved, its role to monitor and study the effects of the restoration work on bird habitat.

The public has been led astray with misinformation about the relationship of our forests and fire prevention. Proponents of the logging industry and even Thomas Vilsack, U.S. secretary of agriculture, claim that removing woody ground debris, thinning, and clearcutting areas of our forests will reduce fires. What the public does not hear are facts debunking the myth of more logging, fewer extreme fires. …Research reveals that logged areas burn more intensely than intact forests. Why is that? Under current “fire prevention” practices, trees and understory are removed, thereby creating hotter, windier, and drier conditions compared to a forest left alone. Unlogged forests of varying strands, especially older trees, provide high canopy cover, wind breaks and a cooler and shadier microclimate. …Damage to developed areas is more effectively managed by zoning that prevents building in wildland areas