News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Governor John Kitzhaber stood among charred remnants of the woods bordering Black Butte Ranch on Tuesday, August 6, and called for action to restore the health of Oregon's forests.
Fires have ravaged hundreds of thousands of acres of Oregon's forests this summer. The Eyerly Fire north of Sisters consumed nearly 30,000 acres and destroyed 18 homes. Two homes at Black Butte Ranch were lost to the 4,200-acre Cache Mountain fire.
According to Sisters District Ranger Bill Anthony, it has cost roughly $20 million just to fight the Eyerly, Geneva 2 and Cache Mountain fires in Central Oregon. In Southern Oregon, the Florence fire has grown to be the largest in state history, with a cost sure to be many millions of dollars.
"There's a whole lot that we need to do off-season so that we don't spend our whole summer just playing catch-up," Kitzhaber told a large crowd of foresters, journalists and local officials.
"Most of the Eastside forests are very unhealthy," he said.
There is virtually unanimous agreement among foresters, environmental activists and timber industry representatives that local forests are overgrown with dense stands of small trees, thick underbrush and tangles of dead material. In this condition, the forests are vulnerable to disease and severe wildfires.
Thinning the forest through cutting small trees, mowing underbrush and burning along the forest floor not only helps restore a natural, healthy forest -- they help prevent wildfires from becoming firestorms that destroy property and threaten the lives of firefighters.
Sisters foresters showed the governor the evidence for that case. The Sisters Ranger District has thinned some areas along the border of Black Butte Ranch.
In one such area along McAllister Road, the fire crept along the ground, leaving the large trees to survive.
A half-mile down the road was a thick stand of small timber -- charred to sticks from bottom to top. It was here that a spot fire on Sunday, July 28, became a firestorm that swept onto Black Butte Ranch and consumed two homes.
According to Sisters Ranger District fire specialist Mark Rapp, flames in the thinned areas were from four to six feet high -- manageable for firefighters. In the "untreated" areas, flames reached 30 feet into the air.
Kitzhaber argued that the work requires sustainable federal funding and a commitment to ecosystems first, with economic value from cutting timber following.
"The only way this is going to work politically is you've got to move toward improving the health of the forest," Kitzhaber said.
Funding and agreement on the need for action aren't enough, according to Hal Salwasser, Dean of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University.
Salwasser believes that the time-consuming analysis of projects must be reduced to expedite restoration projects. Appeals of analysis and litigation in the courts have also contributed to what foresters and industry representatives call "analysis paralysis."
They point to a local example: Analysis of the proposed McCache Project to thin stands in the area of the fire has taken three years and has been appealed.
"We don't need more science to tell us what we need to do," Salwasser said. "We've got the ability to do the work; it's just a matter of reducing the process and getting on with it."
The role of the timber industry in forest restoration is critical -- and potentially controversial.
Many foresters enthusiastically embrace a commercial aspect to forest restoration, which they believe will supplement allocated funds and allow more work to be done.
"If it costs $1,000 per acre to do a treatment and you can recoup $500 per acre, you can do two acres instead of one," Salwasser said.
Tom Partin of the American Forest Resource Council, an industry lobbying group, said that the industry has changed since the days when loggers felled the big ponderosas on the east side.
According to Partin, technology has allowed millworkers to get more out of smaller trees and equipment is now "lighter on the land."
Partin says the timber industry wants to follow the lead of foresters and will cut what is considered appropriate for forest health.
"We've got a lot of work to do and if we can get some value out of it, that's something we should be looking at," Partin said.
Tim Lillebo of the Oregon Natural Resources Council indicated that many environmentalists accept the need to cut some trees.
"Definitely, we can do some things out there," Lillebo said.
However, he cautioned that diameters should be kept small -- around 12 inches in most cases -- to allow the next generation of "old growth" to replace "the big guys" that currently tower in the forest.
Lillebo argues that projects should be designed to simulate the natural ecosystem and should be tailored to on-site conditions.
For example, he said, thinning makes less sense in higher altitude fir forests that historically have denser stands and a less-frequent burn cycle.
Lillebo emphasized the need to recognize fire as a natural part of the ecosystem.
"We've got to live with fire, because that's what this forest is born of," he said.
However, Lillebo said, urban interface areas need protection and fire should be reintroduced on a prescribed basis.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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