Managing 350,000 Sisters Country acres

The Sisters Ranger District is one of three ranger districts on the Deschutes National Forest. It covers 350,000 acres surrounding Sisters on three sides. During the summer season, the Sisters district has about 110 staff at work.

The current acting district ranger, Lauren DuRocher, is in charge while permanent district ranger Ian Reid is spending four months on the Modoc National Forest in the extreme northeastern corner of California, comprised of 1.6 million acres. He will be back in Sisters in early December.

Amenities and Responsibilities

The Sisters district is home to two wild and scenic rivers - Whychus Creek and the Metolius River. There are three wilderness areas - Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Washington, and Three Sisters – requiring permits from June 15-October 15 for all overnight stays. Day permits are required at 19 of 79 trailheads in the Three Sisters Wilderness which contains hundreds of miles of trails. All reservations need to be made through Recreation.gov either online, via the Recreation.gov app, or by calling their call center at 1-877-444-6777. Permits are not available at the Sisters Ranger District office. The USFS also issues permits to outfitters, guides, organizational/youth camps, general stores, and other facilities.

Twenty-five campgrounds are available in the Sisters district. The 100 private residences in Camp Sherman along the Metolius River are on leased Forest Service land.

Personal or commercial use permits are required for people to gather forest products such as Christmas trees, tree bark and cones, wild edible mushrooms, firewood, native plants, fruits and nuts, medicinal plants and fungi, floral greenery and horticultural stock, fiber, and oil resins.

The district office works with powerline owners and operators for routine vegetation management work along powerlines like the recent project along the powerline next to North Pine Street.

Sisters Ranger District staff members partner with Sisters Elementary School to get students out into the local landscape. Each year, every fourth grader receives a National Forest pass.

Fire Season

DuRocher reported that this year's fire season on the Sisters Ranger District has been relatively quiet, with the few fires reported being quickly extinguished. There have been several large fires on other districts in the Deschutes Forest. Fires are burning elsewhere in the state and have consumed 1.6 million acres. Staff has been going out to support those, both as firefighters and overhead staff (finances, resources, public information, etc.).

Natural Resources

The Natural Resource Department is overseeing several restoration projects in the district, some recently completed, others underway. The Indian Ford Watershed Restoration is a five-year plan. The lower Black Butte swamp work is complete and now work is directed at the upper swamp area. The USFS is working in partnership with Think Wild, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Trout Unlimited, and Soil and Water Conservation District on some of these projects.

Work is almost finished on removing the bridge across the Metolius River near Tract C. The district borrowed a trail crew from the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area to safely hoist the bridge and bring it to shore. This ensured there was no disturbance in the river. The only structures left to remove are the pilings on which the bridge sat. Other projects include a Green Ridge Landscape Restoration, Cougar Rock Restoration Project, and Black Butte Ranch Wildland Urban Interface Fuels Reduction on 2,800 acres.

It is still to be determined if there will be a prescribed burning window this fall. "There are a lot of factors that have to come together for that to happen," said DuRocher.

The new district headquarters currently under construction should be ready for occupancy by July 2025. The old building will eventually be demolished and replaced with parking and landscaping. There will be a community room available for public use after business hours. The older houses on the property are used for temporary staff housing.

Photo by Sue Stafford

A brand new Sisters Ranger District headquarters is under construction.

Forest Protection and Education

Jeremy Fields, who is responsible for permitting special forest products, is also acting temporarily as the Forest Protection Officer. He has no gun/badge/vest, but additional certification allows him to write certain tickets and provide education, but he can't practice true law enforcement. He works in cooperation with the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office and Deschutes County Mental Health regarding people living in the forest. He keeps track of camp locations and their residents.

Fields educates campers and the public about fire, public safety, and proper use of the forest. He also shares in mutual aid with the Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District, which has provided fire extinguishers to those living in the forest.

He works as the Forest Service liaison with the Sisters Community Leadership Initiative that collects trash from the camps every Wednesday, collecting four-to-six yards a week on a 10-mile loop through the forest off North Pine Street. They also offer water jugs to the forest dwellers. SCLI's mission is to serve as stewards of the forest while educating forest dwellers to be good stewards.

As a general concept, Fields approaches enforcement of USFS rules with "three Es":

Engineering - Design the site/locations to ensure compliance by making it intuitive.

Education - Educate the public to encourage compliance.

Enforcement - The hardest to implement. The aim is to have the first two Es help avoid the need for enforcement wherever possible. Regarding enforcement, illegal fires and unpermitted firewood cutting are among the most common infractions.

According to Fields, "it can be tricky to catch people" committing violations in the forest. "I spend most of my day educating, giving people opportunities to be successful" before shifting to enforcement. He spends a lot of time talking about the privilege of having a National Forest, that it belongs to everyone, and emphasizing the responsibility everyone has to steward that land.

Houselessness is a challenge and Forests are experimenting with approaches to addressing the issue. It must be a collaborative effort with partners, agencies, and nonprofits. Those in charge are mindful not to force folks into the backcountry.