No bids for Eyerly Fire salvage timber sale

No bids were received by the Sisters Ranger District in an auction held August 10 for the purchase of fire-killed and fire-damaged timber on the 2002 Eyerly Fire.

About 6.4 million board feet of timber were offered for salvage with a starting price of $28.50 per 1,000 board feet.

Most potential bidders apparently believed the timber to be salvaged has little value two years after the fire. Following most wildfires, rot, insects, and a blue stain quickly attack dead and dying trees leaving little economic value in the salvage material.

The Forest Service is reviewing the lack of interest in this sale and may offer it again at a lower price.

Sisters District Ranger Bill Anthony said, "We are looking at ways to repackage this sale and present it again later this year."

Other sales for the remaining Eyerly Fire salvage timber will be announced in the next two to three months, Anthony added.

In 2002, the Eyerly Fire burned 23,573 acres near the head of the Metolius Arm of Lake Billy Chinook on the Deschutes National Forest about 20 miles north of Sisters. Some 17,871 acres of the fire were on the Sisters Ranger District with the remaining acres on state, private and Confederated Tribes of Warm Spring land.

The fire destroyed 18 homes in the Three Rivers area.

The Forest Service estimated that the volume of fire-killed timber exceeded 100 million board feet. The proposed salvage plan called for the harvest of 23 million board feet on 4,330 acres in several sales using tractor, skyline and helicopter yarding techniques.

The project area is east of Green Ridge, west of County Road 64, and south of the Metolius River and Lake Billy Chinook within Jefferson County.

In last week's Nugget, Chuck Burley, a Bend forestry consultant for the forest industry organization, the American Forest Resource Council, stated that he had doubts about the forest industry's interest in the Eyerly Fire timber salvage sale.

He was aware of a growing concern among prospective buyers that after two years much of the economic value of fire-killed timber has been lost to insects and disease.

On August 2, Deschutes Forest Supervisor Leslie Weldon announced plans to begin salvage logging of the Eyerly Fire before the 105-day appeal period had expired.

In her decision, she cited an emergency provision of the Bush administration's Healthy Forests Act, allowing salvage of the fire-killed and fire-damaged trees before all economic value is lost, in addition to health and safety concerns.

Both supporters and opponents will study this lack of Eyerly Fire salvage bids closely since a similar salvage project was recently proposed for 10,000 to 14,000 acres of the B&B Complex and Link fires of 2003.