Ranger reflects on changes in the forest

In many ways, the National Forest is what makes the Sisters Country. People from all over the world are drawn to its beauty and the recreational opportunities it provides. People build their dream home to take advantage of its spectacular views.

That makes caring for that forest a huge responsibility - one that Bill Anthony has borne for the past 14 years as Sisters District Ranger. The role has been more than a job for Anthony, who recently turned 60; it's a ruling passion, and he acknowledges that it has formed a large part of who he is.

Now, as he leaves the job behind for retirement, he reflects back on a period of significant change on the forest, a time of transition from resource-driven management to a focus on stewardship, a period that has brought innovative success and existential threats to the forest that is the gateway to Central Oregon.

The U.S. Forest Service was not the most popular entity in town when Anthony arrived. There had been a scandal over the conduct of a timber sale, and the community essentially didn't much trust the Forest Service.

"The mid-90s were a pretty low time for the district," Anthony said.

Anthony knew he had his work cut out for him. When Anthony and wife Tracey arrived from Colorado, they immediately drove out to the Head of the Metolius.

"Of course, one of the things I noticed was the condition of the forest," Anthony recalled. It was overstocked with small growth, a forest health/wildfire catastrophe waiting to happen.

Collaborative and relationship-oriented by nature, Anthony set about reestablishing the tattered bond between the community and the Forest Service, with the aim of restoring the forest to a healthy condition.

"We started small, with the highway thinning along Highway 20 - a very non-controversial project," he said.

The community liked the way the forest looked, with the big trees prominent again, given room to breathe.

In 1999, the Camp Sherman-based Friends of the Metolius approached the Forest Service about tackling the forest conditions in that beloved corner of Sisters Country. The conservation organization was wary of the Forest Service, but willing to work with Anthony and his staff on creating a demonstration area for different methods of treating the forest for health and wildfire protection.

That was a pivotal moment.

"That led the way for us to do a much larger, 15,000-acre demonstration in the Camp Sherman area," Anthony said.

The Heritage Forest Demonstration Project has garnered nationwide attention.

Other collaborative efforts followed, including the Glaze Restoration Project near Black Butte Ranch. Groups that had stood at arms length - or in opposition - to the Forest Service in the past were brought into a collaborative relationship to help plan the project. Oregon Wild was one of those groups, and its activist leader Tim Lillebo saluted Anthony on his retirement as "innovative, creative, and ahead of (his) time."

Anthony says that one of the great satisfactions of his job has been seeing what were once "difficult relationships turn into great relationships."

A series of significant wildfires in the Sisters Country drove home the need for and the benefits of thinning the forest, and local residents have come to want more work done in their forest.

"Now the discussion is, 'When are you going to treat around my community, my property?'" Anthony said.

Anthony leaves the Sisters Ranger District with a changed landscape, not least in the key watersheds of the Metolius River and Whychus Creek, where partnerships among many organizations and parties have put more water and more wood in the streams, restoring them to conditions that will soon allow the return of native fish.

"I always enjoyed watching our many good projects get completed," Anthony said. "It was very rewarding to see the landscape change in a good way, project by project, and I have great pride in the work my employees have accomplished. However, the public support for our work, and the great relationships and collaborative partnerships that have been developed along the way, are most meaningful to me because those relationships will lead to more good work yet to come. And to me that pretty much sums up our mission to care for the land and serve people."

While the satisfaction of major accomplishments builds incrementally over time, the bad times tend to come abruptly and with great force. And, Anthony acknowledged, "there have been some very tough moments."

One came recently when a federal firefighter was injured by a falling treetop while battling one of a series of blazes sparked by summer lightning. It was the first time one of Anthony's crew had gotten seriously hurt and it was, he says, his "worst nightmare."

The firefighter's injuries, while serious, turned out not to be as catastrophic as initially feared and he is expected to eventually make a full recovery.

Another tough moment came when a fire crew lost control of a prescribed fire in the Metolius Basin in September of 2008.

The Wizard Fire "was definitely one of the more difficult times for us - and me - due to the erosion of public confidence that we work so hard to build and maintain," Anthony said. "However, I believe we have learned from our mistakes on that incident, made some improvements, and are continuing to move forward with this important forest restoration and fuels-reduction work."

Major wildfires that hit Sisters Country on an almost annual basis for the past decade posed big challenges for the district, and threatened things that Anthony holds dear.

He recalled the first night of the B&B Fire in August of 2003, when the massive blaze was roaring all around Suttle Lake. As Anthony left the area, it looked very much like that gem of Sisters Country would be reduced to ash.

"I was almost in tears," he recalled.

A combination of good luck and dogged firefighting kept the flames at bay, and Suttle Lake escaped the worst the B&B could do.

One project Anthony leaves unfinished is the effort to sell the current site of the Sisters Ranger District headquarters and build new facilities. The tanking of the real estate market makes a land sale at a suitable price unlikely in the near-term.

"We did miss a key window of opportunity when the markets were much better," Anthony acknowledged.

While the district really needs new facilities, he says, "we've made do for a long time; we can continue to make do."

These are hard times for the U.S. Forest Service, which has been hit repeatedly in each round of budget cuts. Those cuts could potentially threaten the very existence of the Sisters Ranger District. Anthony acknowledged that the possibility of consolidating with Bend comes up in the face of tough budget times, but he is reasonably confident that the district will remain in place. There are currently no plans on the table for the district to fold up.

In fact, there has long been a consensus that the Forest Service should maintain a presence in this, the gateway to Central Oregon.

"I know we on the forest believe we need to be here," Anthony said.

Anthony will hang up his spurs on December 31. There will be a national search for his successor, and he thinks there will be plenty of applicants, because Sisters is a desirable posting and the district has earned a reputation for quality, innovative work.

For his part, Anthony is still trying to determine what his post-Forest Service life will look like. He plans to spend more time with his wife and to travel, but the couple plans to stay in the Sisters Country.

"I'm really looking forward to sort of striking a new balance in my life," he said. "But I'm finding there is quite a process of letting go of something that's been a part of you for so long."

He says that, no matter how hard or frustrating a day he's had, he always wakes up energized and excited about the work of the day ahead. He credits the Sisters Ranger District staff for a lot of that, and he deeply values the relationships he's built there over the past 14 years. That's perhaps the hardest thing to leave.

"These people are as much family to me as my family is," he said.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

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.

• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: 5415499941