Los Padres Wildfire Risk Reduction Project

Thanks to Nick Smith for the link to this Los Padres EA..

It looks like a condition-based management EA for wildfire risk reduction activities. It’s 75 pages with many appendices.

The LPNF proposes two general categories of treatments: (1) Fuelbreaks and Defense Zones (Zones) and (2) Forest Health Treatment Units (Units). The objective in Units is to promote healthy forests that are resilient to natural disturbance, enhance opportunities to suppress wildfire, and increase protection of the urban interface. Zone treatments would occur along ridgelines, existing roads, motorized trails, and property lines and adjacent to Forest Service administrative sites (including developed recreation sites, fire stations, and ranger district offices), communication sites, and other structures. Zone treatments would involve the establishment and maintenance of strategic fuelbreaks along ridgelines to slow the rate of spread of wildfire for the purposes of aiding wildfire management efforts and protecting infrastructure, communities, and natural and cultural resources. Zone treatments would also involve reducing fuels along roads and motorized trails to support ingress/egress and evacuation and reducing fuels along property lines and adjacent to United States Forest Service (USFS) administrative sites to help protect life and structures and limit economic damage associated with wildfires. Treatment methods could include mechanical thinning, hand thinning, chipping and grinding, piling and burning, mastication, mowing and weed-whipping, prescribed fire, targeted grazing, and planting and seeding.

The project is designed with a management approach that supports responsiveness and flexibility prior to treatment implementation. This approach allows for proposed treatments to be aligned post-decision but prior to implementation with ground conditions at the time of implementation. This will maximize the efficacy and efficiency of project planning and implementation by reducing the time and funding currently spent per project, increasing flexibility to choose treatment areas and methods, and taking advantage of time-sensitive opportunities and conditions. It also allows for continued coordination with local agencies, tribes, and others to focus treatments on shared priorities and include cultural approaches consistent with the project.

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One of the questions many people have on these projects is “how is the public involved in the site-specific decisions?”

An Implementation Plan (IP) was developed as part of this proposed action to help ensure resource conditions at the time of implementation are appropriately considered prior to implementation. The IP provides an implementation framework and process that the Forest Service will apply at the stand level prior to entry. The IP includes three forms to be filled out at different stages of implementation planning, and one form to be filled out upon treatment completion:
• Form A: Phase Initiation Form
• Form B: Phase Treatment Form
• Form C: Environmental and Permitting Requirements and NEPA Consistency Determination
• Form D: Treatment Completion Tracking Form
Each form is described in detail in Appendix D – Implementation Plan, including templates for each. Work will be prioritized each year based upon an assessment of the dynamic conditions, addressing areas of highest priority for the upcoming phase with the input of the Forest’s fire, fuels, silviculture and/or other specialists as applicable. A key component of this step would be to identify the areas and types of surveys that need to be performed, including (but not limited to) special-status species and their habitats,
invasive plant species, riparian conservation areas, and cultural resources. Many of these studies are time-sensitive and surveys, when necessary, would be performed in the appropriate season before the work. Applicable RPMs and Best Management Practices (BMPs) would be listed based on the assessment of resources to ensure that any constraints are included in the planning of the work for the year and to ensure that crews performing the work are also aware of the requirements.
For the WRRP, it is anticipated that up to 10,000 acres of treatments would be implemented each year, with a maximum implementation scenario, including re-entry treatments, not to exceed 20,000 acres per year. This is based on a review and average of work over the last 10 years. Including all types of treatments, the LPNF currently averages 3,500 acres per year, with higher totals over 9,000 acres of annual treatment.

Appendix D has a very detailed description of the implementation steps. I selected this section to describe public outreach at the site-specific implementation level.

Each phase of work would be disclosed to cooperating agencies, tribes, and the public (e.g., posted to the Forest website, social media, and/or other method(s)), to the extent practicable. No additional NEPA decisions are needed unless proposed work falls outside the scope of the EA. A detailed plan for the phase of work that includes elements such as the location of treatment areas, the surveys completed and areas of modified treatments based on RPMs and other measures, identification as to whether material would be sold, chipped or masticated, piled and burned, or removed would be provided as well as a more precise schedule of activities. Outreach to the public, particularly in areas where treatment is located near residences or prescribed fire is planned, would be undertaken. Regulations requiring formal public engagement opportunities (e.g., comment or objection periods (36 CFR 218)) during project implementation do not exist.

So there is a chance for the public to make its wishes known at each site, but no regulatory requirements for formal comment periods.  What do you think?

Tuesday News Roundup: Links, Insurance, Funding and Partners

Obviously there are many interesting things going on right now, not all of which can be covered here.

We’ll start with my favorite quote of last week, from Andy Stahl in an E&E News article about the Timber EO. Extra points for the Kohelet reference!

Stahl said he thinks the emergency designation is overblown.
“There’s nothing new under the sun happening out in the woods,” Stahl said. “Forests burn, insects thrive.”
What I’ve Heard is Happening with FS
Purchase cards continuing to be a problem.
Reports are that positions are being reviewed for contribution to recreation and veg management capacity in some Regions. No new info on RIFs, same discussion about R&D, S&PF, WO and ROs.

Fixing Broken Links:
Last week I mentioned that the links to the projects websites from the SOPAs seemed to be broken. I contacted the Press Office (not knowing the address of the Tech Office) and they said
“Our system nationwide switched to a new platform this week, and we’re working on broken links. If you check back next week and they are still not working, please send us the links.” So please let me know of any broken links in the comments, probably best after Wednesday or so, to give them a chance to fix.

Wildfire Insurance

The Hotshot Wakeup interviewed Michael Wara of Stanford, an expert in the wildfire/insurance space.  Interesting interview, and Wara explains that that plethora of wildfire risk maps have to do with what exactly they are used for.

Idaho Forest Industry Web Map

Thanks to University of Idaho Extension!

Scott Fitzwilliams, White River National Forest Supervisor Resigns

These stories reminded me of when Scott first came to the Region from California. He was shocked by how little funding his forest got for their work, compared to California forests.  I’ve always wondered about that, and whether national cuts are always cutting from the Big Timber days, so Regions with formerly Big Timber programs still get relatively more bucks.   I wonder if anyone has ever taken the current roads, trails, campgrounds, ski areas, and dispersed use and looked across the country and seen the differences in funding (and wondered why that was so).

 

Happy Retirement, Scott!

There were many articles, but I thought I’d pick this one from the Colorado Sun:

The White River National Forest — with its 11 major ski areas, eight wilderness areas and four reservoirs — regularly hosts more than 17 million visitors a year. The forest supports more than 22,000 jobs, with forest-dependent workers in its communities — like Aspen, Breckenridge, Carbondale, Eagle, Glenwood Springs, Meeker, Rifle and Vail — earning $960 million a year, according to the Forest Service’s economic analysis of its top 111 properties. The forest’s annual impact of $1.6 billion in its communities ranks as the highest in the agency.

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He recently began speaking up about the need to better fund a forest that produces so much for its communities, calling on federal lawmakers to pass the Ski Hills Resources for Economic Development Act — or the SHRED Act — which would allow forests to retain as much as 75% of the fees paid by ski areas in their boundaries.

The White River’s ski areas — like Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Keystone, Snowmass and Vail — send the federal treasury more than $20 million a year as revenue-based rent for public lands. The SHRED Act would allow the White River to keep as much as $17 million of that, which would almost return the forest’s annual budget to where it was in the late 2000s, before wildfire costs ravaged the agency’s disbursements to individual forests.

“We see all this economic activity and money flowing out of the forest but none is flowing back in. This forest, it’s a machine and it’s a producer for us,” Fitzwilliams told The Sun in 2022. “It’s really taking care of us and it’s really giving us a lot. Maybe it’s time to give back.”

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This is a very interesting interview by Zeke Lunder of the Lookout, with  Tanya Torst, who was a partnership coordinator apparently hired to help with partnerships for fuel treatment projects. She has a fairly unusual background for a new hire, so it’s interesting to get her perspective.

 Tanya brought a unique perspective to her new job, trying to get things done within a large bureaucracy staffed largely by people without a business background.

Tanya has a MBA from Chico State, a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University, and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Management from Marylhurst University.

Here’s a sample:

Zeke Lunder 

Why is that? Why is why is the Forest Service lost so much capacity? Why is it so hard for them to get work done?

Tanya Torst 

Yeah, that’s a good question. Part of it is because Congress does not give them enough money to to hire and even pay our people last year because of the continuing resolution last fiscal year, fiscal year 24 there was, it was very it was a big struggle. We had to stop expense, any expenses. I. Um, we couldn’t do travel to do our work done. I’m not talking about fun travel. I’m talking about travel to get work done. We it. We just couldn’t pay our own bills. And with the continuing resolution of this year, we couldn’t even buy toilet paper. I mean, it’s ridiculous. And you know, we’re talking about forest supervisors, and everyone’s like, Well, looks like, you know, office folks are going to be doing cleaning toilets, and that’s okay, you know what? I think all of us are fine with doing that. We don’t have an issue with that. I, I was on a call with one of the forests, and the question was, how do we keep track of everything when we have four to five different jobs to do where one person is doing the work of four to five people or trying to they’re honestly, some of them are not getting paid over time. No one’s getting paid overtime. It’s like it’s so hard to get anything done. And then I’m gonna just bring it up. NEPA is challenging…

At the time, it sounds like the federal funding was stopped. But various partners are now hiring for positions formerly done by employees, so perhaps the taps are back on? For some but not all? What do folks know about this?

Burned Out: Deadly National Forest Fires Now Entering Towns (part 2)

Here is the text (part 2) to my current article on this topic that was just published in Oregon Fish & Wildlife Journal. Because it is pretty long, I have posted the illustrations, captions, tables, and a map separately, as “part 1.” Here is the complete published version: http://nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Articles/Magazines/Oregon_Fish_&_Wildlife_Journal/20250401_Burned_Out/Zybach_20250425.pdf

Burned Out: Deadly National Forest Fires Now Entering Towns

 The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires caught everyone’s attention because of their size and affected population: 29 people died, more than 18,000 homes and structures were destroyed, and 57,800 acres burned. The location, politics, litigation, and insurance claims associated with this catastrophic event will likely be in the news for many years to follow for those reasons.

Compare this with the 25+ towns, 124 fatalities, 31,000+  homes and structures lost, and 4,327,600 acres burned from 2018 through 2024 in northern California and western Oregon within the bounds of the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). And consider these were not the only acres and structures burned during those years in NWFP lands — just the ones that burned into towns.

More towns have burned in National Forest wildfires in the last seven years — and mostly in NWFP territory — than had taken place in the entire US over the previous 100 years — a lot more. How did this happen? And how to fix?

This article is not intended to be a memoriam for these towns and affected residents; rather, it is a much hoped-for action plan to help repair these communities and to resume active management of our public roads and forests to reduce wildfire damage for their benefit and for the benefit of all US citizens.

1897 Organic Act: In The Beginning

In 1897 Congress passed the “Organic Act” to manage and protect the recently created US Forest Reserves. The bill was signed into law by President William McKinley and has never been repealed. The guiding principal of the Act remains fairly well-known to this time, and has been the stated theoretical basis to all subsequent US Forest Service (USFS) planning:

“No public forest reservation shall be established, except to improve and protect the forest within the reservation, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States.”

A lesser-recognized portion of the Act also states it was “for the purpose of preserving the living and growing timber and promoting the younger growth on forest reservations” — and, in that regard, authority was given to “designate and appraise so much of the dead, matured, or large growth of trees found upon such forest reservations” for sale at “not less” than the appraised value, under the sole condition it couldn’t be “exported” to another State or Territory.

In a nutshell, “living and growing timber” was intended to be “preserved,” “younger growth” was to be “promoted,” and a “continuous supply” of “dead, matured, or large” trees were to be sold at market value: “For the use and necessities of citizens of the United States.”

In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt created the USFS by transferring 56 million acres in 60 Forest Reserves from the US Department of the Interior (USDI) to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). His good friend and collaborator, Gifford Pinchot, was put in charge of the new agency as its first “Chief.”

Roosevelt signed HR Act 460 on February 1, 1905. On the same day James Wilson, the Secretary of Agriculture, sent Pinchot a letter outlining the basic principles and public-service policy the new “Forest Service” was to follow. Key excerpts included:

“In the administration of the Forest Reserves, it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to the most productive use for the permanent good of the whole people and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies . . . You will see to it that the water, wood, and forage of the Reserves are conserved and wisely used under business-like regulations enforced with promptness, effectiveness and common sense.”

And, “. . . Where conflicting interest must be reconciled, the question will always be decided from the standpoint of the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run.” By 1910, Pinchot had been able to expand the agency to 150 National Forests covering 172 million acres when everything changed.

 1910 Fires: Course Change

The year 1910 was when the mission, focus, and budget of the USFS was dramatically changed. An estimated 1700 spot fires were driven together with unexpected hurricane-force winds for six hours and burned and uprooted 3 million acres of forestland, destroyed several railroad towns from Montana, through Idaho, and into Washington, and killed 86 people — mostly firefighters under the direction of the new US Forest Service.

The 1910 Fires galvanized the new agency into action and its mission became “fire prevention” above all else. Funding, research, and a great expansion in personnel took place. In 1915 the first fire lookout tower was built on Mt. Hood, and by the 1930s nearly 8000 were in operation across the US, connected by a functional network of roads, pack trails, and telephone lines.

The mission and focus became to spot and extinguish wildfires in USFS lands as quickly and completely as possible. By 1935 the “10 a.m. policy” was firmly in place, with the “rule” that all fires were to be extinguished by 10 a.m. the following day. With the advent of WW II, airplanes and smokejumpers were added to the firefighting effort.

This system became remarkably effective over time. From 1952 until 1987, only one forest fire in all western Oregon was greater than 10,000 acres; the 1966 Oxbow fire was 42,000 acres in size, and it took place on USDI Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Land, not USDA Forest Service.

But things began to change in the 1960s and 70s. Forest fires were increasingly seen as past events from earlier times and focus changed to Wilderness areas, endangered species, riparian buffers, critical habitat, and Deep Ecology. In 1964 the Wilderness Act was signed into law and created 54 areas over 13 states, including the Kalmiopsis in southwest Oregon.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted in 1966. On December 22, 1969 Congress enacted the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and a short distance away on the same day, 50 other lawyers were incorporating the Environmental Law Institute (ELI).

In 1973, Congress passed a completely rewritten ESA, revised to “protect critically imperiled species from extinction” and including “the ecosystems upon which they depend.” The new law distinguished”threatened” from “endangered” species; allowed listing threatened species in just part of their range;allowed listing of plants and invertebrates; authorized unlimited funds for species protection; and madeit illegal to kill, harm, or otherwise “take” a listed species. In effect, “the law made endangered species protection the highest priority of government.”

In 1978, the Forest Service officially abandoned the 10 a.m. policy, marking a significant shift in strategy from fire suppression to “fire management.” This approach included “allowing naturally caused fires to burn” and “the use of prescribed fires.” The stated intent was to “return fire to the land.”

The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) was enacted in 1980  to authorize the payment of attorney’s fees “and other expenses” to a prevailing party in legal actions against the United States. The Act was initially designed to aid very small businesses and poorer citizens, but an odd loophole allowed wealthy “nonprofit” environmental organizations to hire costly legal teams to sue the government at taxpayer expense. Which they did, in dozens of subsequent “environmental” lawsuits.

NEPA, ELI, the ESA, and EAJA had formed the perfect strategy for environmental organizations to file series of lawsuits to “stop clearcutting” and “preserve old-growth,” and “save spotted owls” by ending logging on public lands. The lawsuits, funded by taxpayers, were generally successful and the “Timber Wars” soon developed between litigious environmentalists and the forest industry, creating bitter feelings between the factions, and widespread unemployment and business failures in affected rural communities.

Then, in 1987, more than 42,000 acres of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness burned in the Silver Complex Fire in the Siskiyou National Forest. More than 96,000 acres burned in all, making it the largest forest fire in western Oregon since WWII and the 1945 Tillamook Fire; fully two generations of residents earlier. Lawsuits followed.

In 1990, the northern spotted owl was listed as “threatened” under the ESA. A federal judge placed an injunction on all timber sales in spotted owl habitat until forest managers could “produce a plan to ensure preservation of the entire ecosystem.” More lawsuits followed.

 1993 Clinton Plan: Environmentalism

In the 1980s and 90s there had been a lot of interest in such concepts as “preserving old-growthforests,” “maintaining spotted owl habitat,” and “riparian enhancement.” These concepts were typicallyrationalized by untested “ecological” theories of “steady state ecosystems” and idealistic descriptions of such circumstances as “non-declining, even-flow, naturally functioning” forests and grasslands.

The conflict initially involved commercial sales of old-growth trees on public lands in the Douglas Fir Region. A principal claim was “endangered” spotted owls required old-growth trees to survive. Logging old-growth should therefore be illegal.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton held an all-day public “timber summit” in Portland to address the ongoing “timber wars” between environmental activists and the forest industry. In his opening speech, Clinton told the crowd he wanted to move beyond confrontation and build consensus “on a balanced policy to preserve jobs and to protect our environment.”

Clinton’s summit resulted in the formation of FEMAT, or Forest Ecosystem Management Team: a small group of like-minded scientists from Oregon State University and University of Washington: forest ecologists, wildlife biologists, GIS technicians, and economists — but no foresters, planners, Americans Indians, or affected industries.

Clinton challenged FEMAT to achieve “a balanced and comprehensive policy” that recognized the importance of rural jobs and economies to the region, while preserving “our precious old-growth forests.” The single, regional plan was to protect spotted owls and local economies for “100 years,” and was based on “five principles”:

Clinton’s  first principle was to “never forget the human and the economic dimensions of these problems,” that timber sales be based on “sound management policies,” and “where this requirement cannot be met, we need to do our best to offer new economic opportunities for year-round, high-wage, high-skill jobs.”

Second was to protect our forests for future generations; third, use sound science; fourth, a “sustainable level of timber sales”; and fifth, “make the federal government work together and work for you.”

The FEMAT scientists sequestered themselves for 90 days and produced 10 reduced-timber-sales management options. The President’s choice then became the “Clinton Plan For Northwest Forests,” and then the NWFP. The selected plan stipulated one billion board-feet of timber sales a year to support rural communities. Today, less that 10% of the amount is, or ever has been, actually sold.

In 2002, the Kalmiopsis burned again, in the 500,000-acre Biscuit Fire, which remains the largest forest fire in Oregon history. Then it burned again in the 190,000-acre 2017 Chetco Bar Fire, and a fourth time in the 175,000-acre 2018 Klondike Fire.

In each instance, salvage logging, site preparation, and reforestation were either severely limited or entirely stopped  by litigation from environmental groups, whose lawyers were then well compensated by US taxpayers. And in each instance, the fuels left behind through these actions only made the following fire burn hotter, create more smoke, and kill even more old-growth and wildlife.

2018 California: Paradise Lost

About 15 years ago, retired USFS forester Bruce Courtwright became very concerned about increasing wildfires and wildfire risks to the communities of northern California, so he helped gather a number of other wildfire experts to collectively address the problem. This group eventually became known as the National Wildfire Institute (NWI).

In 2016 NWI wrote a formal letter to incoming President Donald Trump expressing strong concerns regarding the increased wildfire risk, and with expert recommendations on how to fix the problem. The paper was titled, “Our Dying National Forests: A Disaster or Perfect Opportunity for Bold Action by a New President.” The paper was widely distributed, published by Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities, and then ignored and not even acknowledged.

The following year, 2017, California suffered the worst wildfire losses in its history as more than 3,000 homes burned in the city of Santa Rosa, more than 191,000 acres burned in the northern Sacramento Valley vineyards and farmlands, and 42 people were killed.

In 2018 things became worse.

2018 Camp Fire. The 2008 Butte Lightning Complex burned 50 homes in Cancow, but the town had been largely rebuilt. Ten years later, on November 8, a wind-driven wildfire came out of Feather River Canyon and within six hours totally destroyed Cancow and Paradise, killing 85 people and doing heavy damage to Maglia, Pulga, and Butte Creek Canyon. More than 153,000 acres burned, Pacific Gas & Electric was held liable, paid $13.5 billion in damages, pled guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter, and went bankrupt.

2018 Carr Fire. The Carr Fire started near Whiskeytown Lake on July 23 when a trailer had a flat tire and the wheel’s steel rim began sparking on the asphalt, igniting dry weeds along the highway. Three days later it burned into the town of Redding, causing the evacuation of 38,000 people. The fire caused a 143 mph, 18,000-foot “fire whirl” to develop in town, causing heavy “tornado-like” wind damage and further spreading the fire. The town of Keswick was completely destroyed, Old Shasta State Park heavily damaged, and six people died, including two firefighters.

2020 August Complex. The August Complex began as 38 separate lightning fires on August 17 that combined to burn over a million acres, making it the largest wildfire in California history. The fire primarily burned in the Mendocino National Forest but also burned the small communities of Ruth and Forest Glen. One firefighter was killed and two injured.

2020 North Complex. The North Complex also started as 21 separate fires ignited by the August 17 lightning storm. A USFS “firing operation” backfired on September 8 when strong winds caused the fire to “blow up” and leveled the towns of Berry Creek and Feather Falls. More than 318,000 acres burned, 16 people were killed, and more than 100 injured. Toxic fumes from the fire inundated Quincy and other nearby communities for weeks.

2021 Dixie. The Dixie Fire began in Feather River Canyon on July 13 and eventually burned more than 963,000 acres. It is the first wildfire known to cross the Sierra Nevada and leveled the towns of Greenville on August 4, Canyondam on August 5, and Warner Valley on August 12. An ex-criminal justice professor, Gary Maynard, was arrested and convicted for setting arson fires in conjunction with the Dixie Fire and sentenced to a five-year prison term.

2022 McKinney. The McKinney Fire started on July 29 in the Klamath National Forest, burned 60,000 acres along the Klamath River, and destroyed the town of Klamath River. The fire burned through areas previously burned in the 1955 Haystack Fire and the 2014 Beaver Fire. The fire killed four people and “tens of thousands of fish” in the river and its tributaries.

2024 Park. The Park Fire started on July 24, possibly as a result of arson by Chico resident and ex-convict Ronnie Stout II, who set his mother’s car on fire and rolled it over a cliff. The fire burned more than 429,000 acres, more than 700 homes and other structures, and heavily damaged the town of Cohasset.

2020 Oregon: The Labor Day Fires

While California towns have been burning in NWFP wildfires since 2018 at a frequency of every one or two years, all of the Oregon towns damaged or destroyed by National Forest wildfires the past 20+ years took place in just four days. With three days of sustained east winds beginning on the evening of Monday, September 7, 2020, nearly a dozen major wildfires in western Oregon burned through more than a dozen towns, killed 11 people, destroyed more than 4,000 homes, caused 40,000 emergency evacuations, killed millions of wild and domestic animals, and blanketed much of the state with a thick, acrid smoke that obscured the sun for days.

Because September 7 was a Labor Day, these tragedies became known as the Labor Day Fires. The fires also burned more than a million acres of land, much of it in old-growth and merchantable timber, making them the most catastrophic wildfires in Oregon history, by a very wide measure. The destroyed towns were burned in five of the named fires, described below, and located in five different counties within four National Forests: Rogue River/Siskiyou, Siuslaw, Umpqua, and Willamette.

When the towns, counties, fatalities, and NWFP Forests that burned in the 2020 Labor Day Fires are considered in combination with 2020 California’s North Complex and August Complex Fires, the numbers are startling: 28 deaths, at least 16 towns destroyed or severely damaged, and nearly 2 1/2 million acres of burned forestland — in only two months, seven counties, and seven National Forests.

When considered in combination with all of the other fires in the NWFP region and in the rest of the US, 2020 must be considered one of the worst Fire Years in the Nation’s history — on par with the 1910 Fires and 1881.

Santiam Fire. This was the deadly convergence of three fires that had started with August 16 lightning strikes on the Warm Springs Reservation and on the Opal Creek and Mount Jefferson Wildernesses in the Willamette National Forest and blew up with the Labor Day east winds [Note: an Oregon Department of Forestry report on this fire claims there was no indication of lightning for 30 days before thiese fires, yet lightning clearly started major wildfires in California]. The fire devastated the towns of Detroit and Gates, with roughly 80% of homes and businesses burned. More than 1,500 structures in the Santiam Canyon were destroyed, including significant damage to the towns of Idanha, Mill City, and Lyons. A total of 402,000 acres burned and five people were killed.

Archie Creek Fire. Much of the fuel in the 131,500-acre Archie Creek Fire was provided by the standing snags remaining from the 2009 Wiliams Creek, 2015 Cable Crossing, and 2017 Fall Creek Fires. There is evidence the Fire may have actually started in the Williams Creek snags. The resulting fire was so hot that virtually all plants and animals within the fire’s perimeter perished. One person also died and more than 400 homes were destroyed, including several in the towns of Glide and Idleyld Park.

Holiday Farm Fire. This fire started near the Holiday Farm RV Resort in Rainbow on the evening of September 7, ignited by falling powerlines. From there it traveled west down the McKenzie River Valley, destroying or doing great damage to the towns and communities of Blue River, Finn Rock, Nimrod, and Vida. One person was killed, 517 homes destroyed, and 173,000 acres burned.

Almeda Drive. A 41-year old arsonist, Michael Jarrod Bakkela, was arrested for setting fires and possessing meth on September 8, the day the Almeda Drive Fire killed three people, destroyed 2,400 homes, burned 5,700 acres, and did serious damage to the towns of Phoenix and Talent. These were the only two towns burned during the Labor Day Fires that were not associated with a National Forest. Rather, principal fuels were provided with the overgrown “buffer” of Himalayan blackberries along the Bear Creek Greenway, and by aging “trailer parks,” mobile homes, and RVs sandwiched between the I-5 and Highway 99 firebreaks. Bakkela later pleaded guilty and was given 11 years.

Echo Mountain. A large part of the coastal town of Otis burned, along with a portion of the Siuslaw National Forest, but the entire fire was among the smallest of the Labor Day Fires at 2,600 acres. There were no fatalities, but 293 homes were burned, and PacifiCorp settled a lawsuit with 403 plaintiffs for $178 million.

Conclusions & Solutions

Whether intended or not, the US Forest Service has been systematically destroying our public forests and rural communities with fire the past 35 years on physical, economical, biological, and aesthetic levels. Hundreds of people have been killed, tens of thousands of homes destroyed, businesses have gone bankrupt, schools have gone broke, millions of acres of old-growth and tens of millions of wildlife have been killed, deadly smoke has filled our cities for weeks, and somehow there is no accountability — and all expenses have been covered by taxpayers

This can be fixed. Our parents and grandparents showed us how. Put an end to these catastrophic wildfires so much as possible; salvage the dead trees as quickly as possible and turn them into building materials for new homes and fuels to heat them; maintain the roads and trails; plant new trees for the next generation; and pick up after yourselves. Then with the money you make, pay your taxes, buy a home, build a school, donate a park, and take a vacation. All documented in publications, film, video, memories, and photographs.

For too many years we’ve been fed the political propaganda (“science”) that a “healthy” forest is full of big snags, big logs, and a “multi-layered canopy” of biodiversity connecting the earth to the highest old-growth canopies. Endangered plants and animals everywhere, safe at last. In such an “idealized” environment, man is a pathogen — a transitory visitor who leaves no trace and only visits occasionally.

This is one of the most misleading, deadly, and costly falsehoods imposed by a central government on its rural populations since Russia had Lysenko take over wheat production. Maybe not as deadly for people, but certainly worse for wildlife, and far more costly. And the same “science”-driven process.

Dead and dying trees are signs of a dead and dying forest, as has been clearly observed and documented the past 35 years. For thousands of years before then, the surest sign of a healthy forest was one that was regularly visited and inhabited by healthy human populations.

This can be fixed. We just need to follow the law by returning to the Organic Act of 1897, the Forest Service principles and mission of 1905, the 1935 10 a.m. policy, and the Multiple-Use, Sustained-Yield Act of 1960. And go from there. Start with a clean slate and fix this mess for future generations.

We can start by returning to active management of our roads, trails, and forests, with a focus on preserving the remaining old-growth, restoring our ruined forests, and carefully monitoring our wildlife populations.

The experts on rebuilding our damaged towns, restoring our dying forests, and maintaining our roads and trails are the people rebuilding the towns, managing the local forests, and keeping our roads and trails in good shape. They’re the experts — not the university professors, government bureaucrats, or even the elected officials that have steered us to this result.

In my world, our schools, roads, forests, and visitors should all be managed at the county or river level, with local businesses and residents. There is a lot of work to be done, it will take thousands of people to do it, and long-term, local contracts could be the start.

https://forestpolicypub.com/2025/04/28/burned-out-deadl…ing-towns-part-1/

Burned Out: Deadly National Forest Fires Now Entering Towns (part 1)

My current article on this topic was just published in Oregon Fish & Wildlife Journal. It is pretty long, with a number of illustrations, captions, tables, and a map, so I am going to post in two parts, with these illustrations first and the body of the text to follow.Here is the published version: http://nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Articles/Magazines/Oregon_Fish_&_Wildlife_Journal/20250401_Burned_Out/Zybach_20250425.pdf

1-Title_Page. Historic downtown of Greenville, California, which burned in 30 minutes during the Dixie Fire on August 4, 2021. Photo courtesy of Doug Stoy and Green Ribbon Report.

2-Repeat_Photos. These before and after pictures show the destruction to historic Greenville buildings; several more than 100 years old, and some even having survived the 1881 Greenville Fire 140 years earlier. At that time the town had a population of 500; before the Dixie Fire it was 1100. Greenville was founded as a Gold Rush town in the 1850s and acquired a trading post in 1862. Principal occupations transitioned from mining to logging in the mid-1900s. Photographs courtesy of Doug Stoy and Green Ribbon Report.

3-Greenville_Aftermath. The remains of Greenville, following the Dixie Fire, with Indian Valley and unburned portions of Lassen National Forest in the background. These photographs of Greenville were originally published in the Green Ribbon Report, the newsletter of the Family Water Alliance, Inc. (FWA), based in Colusa, California. They are selected from a series of photographs taken and collected by Doug Stoy, who lost his home in the fire. Permission to republish the photos was given by the newsletter editor, Nadine Bailey, who is also Chief Operations Officer of FWA.

4-Paradise_Compass. Frank Carroll, Professional Forest Management, took this photograph of the remains of a business on Main Street in Paradise, California, using the Solocator app on an iPhone 14, which records the exact time, location, and direction of documentary field photos. While surveying and recording the destruction of Paradise, Frank noted: “The Camp Fire burned the town in a single burning period. Homes, businesses, schools, fire stations, community buildings, restaurants, and government buildings burned to the foundations across the city. Cleanup and PFAS soil mitigation had not begun. Surveying the destruction, we were struck by the uniform sense of PTSD among residents, government workers, service workers, and emergency personnel. The Camp Fire was a fire bomb cyclone, impervious to suppression efforts and moving so quickly people died in their homes and their vehicles and were killed when the fire caught them isolated and on foot. Much of the overhead tree mast in large conifers survived intact, indicating a fast-moving ground fire with radiant and convective heat moving horizontally to the ground. Planned emergency egress and warning systems utterly failed to protect residents, as did an almost universal disregard for Firewise planning and zoning, which appears to have been disregarded today as people rebuild traditional structures and inadequate emergency ingress and egress.”

5-Detroit_Market. The Detroit Highway Market with Gene’s Meat Market and gas pumps was a popular local landmark on Highway 22 at the corner of Breitenbush Road. It was a well-known stopping place for many of the hunters, boaters, fishermen, and other recreationists who regularly visited Detroit. The market was destroyed in the Santiam Fire on September 9, along with most of Detroit and Gates, and with significant portions of Idanha, Mill City, and Lyons. Photo by McKenzie Peters, NW Maps Co., November 21, 2020.

6-Phoenix_Trailer_Park. There was a total of 18 aging “trailer parks” and more modern “mobile home estates” destroyed in the towns of Talent and Phoenix between Highway 99 and Bear Creek Greenway during the Almeda Drive Fire on September 8. This videoclip by McKenzie Peters, NW Maps Co., shows the remains of Rogue Valley Mobile Park on October 26, 2020.

7-McKenzie_Street. McKenzie Street and Library sign in Blue River, destroyed in the Holiday Farm Fire on September 7. On November 16, 2024 the Grand Opening of the rebuilt and volunteer-operated Frances Obrien Memorial Library was held in a new location. It marked a very significant day in the recovery of Blue River. Video-clip by McKenzie Peters, NW Maps Co., October 6, 2020.

https://forestpolicypub.com/2025/04/28/burned-out-deadl…ing-towns-part-2/

Helping to Fill the Current Gaps: The “FS Needs Help” App

Last Wednesday, I was driving home from the gym and saw our Volunteer Fire Department putting out a grass fire.  Then Thursday, I spent some time as a volunteer cleaning a kitchen.  Many of the other folks volunteering were in their 70’s, and certainly we weren’t as spry climbing on and off the countertops as younger folks would have been. And we certainly weren’t as knowledgeable or quick as professionals. Yet the job got done.  Plus conversation was had, information exchanged and community bonds were formed.   Some of the volunteers were talking about their (many) other volunteer activities.  It made me reflect on the different framings of “what can we do about the reduction of Forest Service and BLM employees?”.

It appears that many people are leaving, some retiring, some due to future RIFs. I don’t know when this will be done, nor what gaps will exist, but there will be gaps. And field season is starting.

For those of us who can’t influence elections nor Congress, at least for me, putting positive energy into helping is better for my psyche than sending negative energy to the Admin. Plenty of folks are doing the latter.

And it kind of goes back to our previous discussion about “what is an emergency?”. There are certainly large groups of volunteers and others who help out during an emergency and do other things once the emergency is over.

If we looked at the actions of the Admin as something we can’t help (which is probably true in the short-term), how would we react? How did people react to wildfires and hurricane disasters? By trying to help. When the temporary hiring freeze was announced last fall,  this Colorado Sun story had the vibe of “the Forest Service is in trouble, we (volunteer groups) have to step up.”

Volunteer groups that work with the Forest Service are braced for “some frustration and challenges upcoming for 2025,” said Doozie Martin, executive director of Friends of the Dillon Ranger District.

Forest Service officials have warned most of their partners to not anticipate big projects in 2025 as the agency struggles through the hiring freeze.

The 20-year-old Friends of the Dillon Ranger District regularly delivers about 1,000 volunteer days a year on 60 projects in the White River National Forest’s Dillon Ranger District, which accounts for about half the visits to the White River National Forest, the most trafficked forest in the country. The nonprofit last year provided more than 8,500 volunteer hours and collected 500 bags of trash on the public lands around Summit County and helped educate 1,516 local kids through its youth programs.

“We are lucky we live in an area where we get a lot of support from the community and that is not something I expect will recede,” Martin said. “Perhaps we will need to adjust our programming … but right now I still anticipate having our 1,000 volunteers patrolling the trails and reporting back to land managers. I think we can accomplish a similar amount to what we have in the past.”

And the question has been raised about who is going to pump the toilets.. which led to a link to this NPR story about the Bridger-Teton

But the federal government is limited by who and how it can negotiate contracts for work like pumping toilets. It was quoted about $120,000 for the job; Kosiba said that would have bankrupted the BTNF’s recreation budget.

“We’re talking no trails cleared. We’re talking no campground hosts,” he said.

The agency’s hands were tied. But that was not the case for Kosiba’s nonprofit.

For about five years, the BTNF has partnered with the ‘Friends’ group to help fill in the gaps, like pumping toilets. The nonprofit model is a relatively novel concept in the Forest Service and could be a key model for the agency going forward.

“We’re able to do collectively, far more than the agency [USFS] is able to do,” Kosiba said, adding that it is because of how the agency is funded, staff capacity and bureaucratic limitations.

The BTNF essentially granted funds to Kosiba’s group, which could then contract out with other private companies. They agreed to do the job at about a third of that $120,000.

Not a good argument for federal contracting regulations (I bet there’s a very interesting story there) but a great story about 1) seeing the need, 2) noticing what the agency isn’t funded to do and 3) filling the gap.

Maybe this is an opportunity for groups to get started and say “how can we help? What do you need?”  And there are many retirees who would work for nothing in different kinds of jobs (for sure, we’d prefer to be paid, but if this is a crisis and they need us to get over this particular hump, then…  Of course, there is the ACES program and NGOS have various hiring authorities and funding from donations and grants. And of course many retirees are still working on fires, as Mike pointed out.

And apparently grants are going forward, for example, I saw jobs advertised for a forestry stewardship program manager, a hydrology technician and a reforestation technician to help National Forests to be hired by the Great Basin Institute (the latter in cooperation with American Forests).  And some of the recreation sites near where I live are handled by concessionaires.  So each unit may end up having different needs with employees missing, and different ways to fill in the gaps.

Sure, all of us could call our neighboring district and ask what we can do, but figuring that out and training people up to fill the slots would be a body of work that they probably don’t have time for.  And yet, I think that this is work that could be done by, perhaps, retired people with organizing skills. Via some centralized app, folks could find out about in-person and online, volunteer and  paid (via NGO or States or ?)  opportunities to help out the National Forests.  Only some of us still want to do this stuff, but we don’t know how many of us are out there until we ask.

I wonder whether a group like the National Forest Foundation could develop an app with missing capabilities, and all of us who care, with whatever skills or financial capabilities, could see where we could contribute?  Or other partners could use their donations (or grants if that would be OK) to hire volunteer coordinators to do the match-making for any gaps (including Regions and the WO). There are definitely work-at-home possibilities, at least in the documentation world, so that someone in DC could help out folks on the Nebraska, for example. And fieldwork sometimes has a fun aspect which might help people want to do it.

Maybe we’d like our volunteer work so much we would stay on past the crisis.  Maybe we’d form new friendships and alliances which would open doors to future kinds of help and work and partnerships.

Some of these gaps aren’t even new. In fact, last fall folks were asking me to help out in some areas (via ACES) that had crucial gaps even before the current Admin cuts.

Not that volunteering is the only answer, becoming a reemployed annuitant or getting paid via ACES or grants, are always opportunities.  And helping, of course, is not just for retirees. Many skills are not unique to folks who have been employed by the Feds.

For me, it doesn’t matter that the FS made a budgetary mistake (no temporaries this year) or whether the new Administration decided to go on a firing spree, for the purposes of contributing to the Forest Service mission when they are in trouble. The reality is that I could call my Congressional delegation, and they’ve already decided what they’re going to do.  Senators- complain about it; Congressperson- not complain about it, based on their political parties.  The only way I can see to help is.. to help.

Sure, all of us could call our neighboring district and ask what we can do, but figuring that out and training people up to fill the slots would be a body of work that they probably don’t have time for.  And yet, I think that this is work that could be done by, perhaps, retired people with organizing skills. Via some centralized app, folks could find out about in-person and online, volunteer and  paid (via NGO or States or ?)  opportunities to help out the National Forests.  Only some of us still want to do this stuff, but we don’t know how many of us are out there until we ask.

On a related note, I think the FS needs to decide what it wants to be when it grows up. For example, it looks like much reforestation work was farmed out to American Forests. Does the FS want to keep its own knowledgeable people? What kind of expertise does it want to keep in-house? What on-the-ground work should be done by employees versus contractors or grantees or volunteers? Right now I think it’s “whatever works wherever” and perhaps that’s fine. But first getting rid of temps for budget reasons, and now getting rid of people via various forms also gives the FS an opportunity to decide whether it wants to develop a vision of how it wants to work in the future.

What do others think?

 

 

Smokejumper Editorial: Burned Out Towns In USFS Wildfires

Editor Chuck Sheley has compressed my current article, “Burned Out: Deadly National Forest Fires now Entering Towns” into a succinct one-page editorial for the current issue of Smokejumper Magazine. I will post the entire article, with color photos, map, and tables when I get my copy — it was supposed to arrive a few weeks ago, but western Oregon USPS is seemingly going through troubled times lately.

I posted this on a couple of forestry Facebook pages as two JPEGs, the Smokejumper cover and my editorial. Chuck did his normal great job of editing — he has been doing this for 25 years — but I didn’t want to try and re-create  his edits from draft, so I’m also going to post as JPEGs here. The entire article is more than 3500 words, but Chuck catches the essence and key summary conclusion perfectly well. Details to follow [Here is the original post: https://forestpolicypub.com/2024/10/02/burned-out-us-forest-service-is-destroying-our-western-towns 

Guidance on Streamlining and Simplifying Permitting- April 22 Letter

Example of a random SOPA , note that direct contact info for FS employees is available on the SOPA but I blocked for this image. 

The Forest Service Press Office (thanks!) sent me a copy of  this rather lengthy letter.   Here’s a bit of a philosophical question to frame the whole Emergency effort: is wildfire really an emergency?  Some would argue that climate is an emergency; some would argue that wildfire is an emergency but other solutions that vegetation manipulation on federal lands should be chosen.  Some would argue that vegetative manipulation is OK, but it’s not an emergency enough to change current procedures. Others would argue that vegetation manipulation  is OK but not cutting trees to be used commercially.  But if we back up, it seems like some people who believe that global warming is a crisis also believe that (some) mitigation projects should be expedited, but not adaptation projects.  If we frame the wildfire crisis as being about climate change, which some people do.  It’s very confusing, but I thought that it was important to lay out that context before we discuss “what we think is OK to do in an emergency” we need to talk about exactly what we think the emergency is and how we define it.

Here are the general introductory statements:

On April 3, 2025, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins signed Secretarial Memo 1078-006 titled Increasing Timber Production and Designating an Emergency Situation on National Forest System Lands. The Secretarial Memo implements Executive Order 14225, Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production (March 1, 2025). Acting Associate Chief Chris French provided additional direction to Regional Foresters in a letter dated April 3, 2025, Implementation of Secretarial Memo 1078-006. This letter directed the Deputy Chief of the National Forest System (NFS), within 14 days, to release direction for using Emergency National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), and other regulatory authorities to streamline and simplify the permitting process. The following guidance contained in this memo fulfills this requirement.

To address specific challenges related to wildfires and forest health, the Secretarial memo contains an Emergency Action Determination (EAD) under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Section 40807, Emergency Actions authority. NFS will support use of this new EAD with additional information, increased Emergency Action Portal functionality and several mapping products to identify the lands included. All actions eligible within the lands covered will use this EAD authority as the default approach including ongoing actions. To use this Forest Health and Hazardous Fuels EAD, proposals must be submitted through the Emergency Action Portal for final approval by the unit’s Forest Supervisor.

Tribes and States Can Request Additional Areas.

Secretarial Memo 1078-006 provides federally recognized Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations, and States the ability to request additional areas to be included in the EAD through the Regional Forester to the Chief of the Forest Service for approval. Additional process guidance for addressing these requests will be forthcoming.

NEPA

When applying this authority to ongoing NEPA actions, consider if a change in the NEPA process will provide for efficiency given its current stage. If an opportunity for objections has already been communicated to the public or is within the objections process, the project timing may not be a good fit for use of this authority.

Public notice and an opportunity to comment is required for IIJA authorized projects, however the statute affords greater discretion in how that is accomplished. To expedite emergency actions, use streamlined approaches under the Agency’s NEPA procedures rather than relying on the notice and comment procedures of the displaced objection processes set out in 36 CFR Part 218. For example, publication via the Schedule of Proposed Actions and distribution of a notice through the unit’s mailing list may be done for environmental assessments (EAs) and categorical exclusions (CEs). Public notice for an environmental impact statement should follow the direction in 36 CFR 220.5(f).

To further expedite these projects, seek to minimize process requirements like scoping, extraordinary circumstance review, and decision memo requirements while still fulfilling all applicable legal requirements.

My bold. At this point, if I lived near or was otherwise interested in forest projects, I would make sure that I was on the forest’s mailing list, and also check the SOPA at least once a week. You can just type in the forest name and SOPA into a search engine, and find the projects,  the dates, the link to the project website and whom to contact. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any luck clicking through today and sent a note to the WO about the broken links.

1. Scoping for emergency actions shall be commensurate with the scope and scale of the project. Such scoping efforts should be focused and brief. Formal comment periods will not typically be required for EAs and CEs. Alternative forms of public involvement are sufficient to fulfill agency responsibilities under NEPA and the IIJA.

I’ve seen many EAs with apparent comment periods and even response to comments, so this is interesting.

2. For extraordinary circumstances review, analyze the degree of effect to the proposed action not just the mere presence of a resource condition. Focus on the most important
resource conditions, those listed in 36 CFR 220.6(b) and do not casually expand the scope of conditions being assessed.

But if you expand them thoughtfully, I guess that would be OK.

3. For decision documents, use Agency templates and only include the content required at 36 CFR 220.6(e) and 36 CFR 220.7(c). Additional emergency compliance tools under NEPA can be found on the Ecosystem Management Coordination SharePoint site. Where applicable, prioritize use of CEs to meet NEPA compliance. To expand use of CEs, the
Forest Service recently adopted over 40 additional categories from other agencies under Section 109 of NEPA. Please examine these additional categories, as well as current USDA, Agency, and statutory CEs when considering compliance actions in support of the Secretarial Memo.

Note that this adoption was last July, prior to the current Administration.

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There are also emergency suggestions for for NHPA compliance and Tribal Consultation.

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Since Jon knows about ESA, I thought I’d throw this section in this post.

For compliance supporting the ESA:
1. Employ existing, and develop new, innovative, options for expediting ESA consultation and achieving conservation objectives. Refer to the June 26, 2024, Interagency Memo on
“ESA Section 7 Streamlining Guidance for Implementing the Wildfire Crisis Strategy” for a summary of existing options and opportunities for efficient and effective ESA consultation (https://usdagcc.sharepoint.com/sites/fs-nfs-niesc).

Seems like that Interagency Memo (from the last Admin)  is probably available outside the sharepoint site for those curious.

2. Bring innovative ideas to the WO Natural Resources staff to develop additional options and opportunities. New opportunities are being developed as part of the National Active
Forest Management Strategy.
3. Where expedited consultation is necessary, provide as much essential information as feasible to the Services in advance of the action, in order to: determine appropriate design
features to incorporate; assess whether leadership elevation may be warranted; and minimize the time/capacity investment required after any emergency actions are completed.
4. Use the below suggested consultation initiation language where expedited consultation is needed: “XX National Forest is requesting expedited consultation to perform YY work
pursuant to Secretarial Memo 1078-006. The project is expected to commence on ZZ date. If expedited consultation cannot be completed prior to that date, the Forest requests the
consultation be completed under the emergency consultation regs and procedures. (50 CFR § 402.05).”
5. The WO Natural Resources staff are working with ESA consultation agencies to develop additional guidance and methods involving emergency consultation.

To the simple-minded like me, it seems like ESA consultation would involve something like “in these areas, for these kinds of projects, you need to do X, Y and Z to protect A, B and C species.” We know this because dozens of fuel treatment projects likely have been done in the same area.  I get that there are landscape-level considerations. It looks like there already emergency consultation regs and procedures in place, but then that goes back to where we started “is it an emergency, and if so, what kind?”

Does the Emergency Situation Determination “Open Up 112.5 Million Acres” to Logging? No. And New Map Coming

Original ESD map

A Big Shout-out to the Forest Service Press Office for a quick response on this.

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I know I can be critical of the media, but in this case I also think the Department could have done a better job on the rollout.  All it would have taken is one clarifying chunk of words in an accompanying press release (or maybe it was there and I didn’t see it?)

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What does it mean in English to “open up” areas for logging?  Using plain English,  “to make available or possible” implying that those areas had not been previously open.  This was possible as we can see from these media outlets:

WaPo

Trump administration orders half of national forests open for logging

LA Times

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins issued an emergency declaration that ordered the U.S. Forest Service to open up some 112.5 million acres of national forestland to logging.

USA Today

A new policy opens 58% of U.S. national forests to logging by rolling back environmental protections.

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And we found out from the folks at the Associated Press (who wrote a fair story) that the acreage came from the Secretary’s announcement of  acres covered by the ESD.

However, those of us experienced in this area might wonder “how does this related to other designations and forest plans?”  Let’s look at the language the Secretary referred to in her memo from IIJA which sets out the parameters of ESD’s.

For emergency actions 40807 (b) (3) IIJA says .
            (3) Relation to land and resource management plans.--Any 
        authorized emergency action carried out under paragraph (2) on 
        National Forest System land shall be conducted consistent with 
        the applicable land and resource management plan.

Now, we have acres where fuel treatments are allowed in the forest plan.  The memo doesn’t actually change that.  I asked the Press Office about other designations (Wilderness, Roadless etc.) and here is the answer from them:

The current map reflects boundaries within which there may be wilderness, roadless, or other special designation areas, as well as lakes, roads, structures, etc. Mechanical treatments are not allowed in designated wilderness areas, so logging is excluded. Restrictions or conditions associated with project level decisions, forest plans, regulations or Congressional Designations remain.

So the order, in and of itself does not, in fact,  “open up” any new areas to “logging.”  If a new project is proposed in an area that is OK based on all the other forest plan and other designations and restrictions, then it uses the ESD  assists: no objection process-one action alternative-special injunction relief (the latter Rich J. was kind enough to explain.) Abbreviated NOP-OAA-SIR

Now some might argue that with this push for increasing timber harvest, forests might be inclined to do more projects that would require a site-specific plan amendment, and that’s possible, but forests could have done those anyway without the ESD.  So in that sense, the ESD itself did not open anything.  If a forest wants to go somewhere not in the forest plan, though, via a site-specific plan amendment, it would make the project analysis quicker via NOP-OAA-SIR.

So I would say that “opening for logging” based on the ESD, is not correct.

The Press Office told me that there will be a more detailed map shortly, so we’ll post that.

Interior Draft Strategic Plan Leaked.. What Do You Think About Professionalism, Ethics and Leakage?

 

The website Public Domain published a draft version of a strategic plan for the Department of the Interior.

Here’s what the Department of the Interior said about the leakage:

“It is beyond unacceptable that an internal document in the draft/deliberative process is being shared with the media before a decision point has been made,” an Interior Department spokesperson wrote in response to queries from Public Domain. “Not only is this unacceptable behavior, it is irresponsible for a media outlet to publish a draft document. We will take this leak of an internal, pre-decisional document very seriously and find out who is responsible. The internal document is marked draft/deliberative for a reason – it’s not final nor ready for release.”

Nothing sounds too surprising in the Public Domain summary, and it says that when the Department releases a draft we’ll all have an opportunity to comment.

DOI will seek input from the public, tribes and Congress from May to July and plans to finalize its strategy by October, according to the draft.

I thought that this might be a good time to discuss leaking to the media and to others.  Personally, I’ve never done this.   I have worked on projects whose drafts were regularly leaked to outside groups, but not necessarily the media.  It seems to me that it happens more in some Admins than others.. this could be due to the political predilections of employees, and/or that of the media. I wonder whether anyone has ever studied that question?

In what kind of situations would you consider that leaking should be done?  Why?

Oregon’s Wood Product Manufacturing Industry Is Still Important, Especially in Rural Areas

This is an article by Brian Rooney, the Regional Economist for Douglas and Lane Counties in Oregon. It’s pretty interesting about Oregon and the forest products industry.  Thanks to Treefrognews  for this one! Below is an excerpt. Interesting employment projections at the end of the article.

Smaller Harvest, Technology, and Economies of Scale Contribute to Decline

Several structural shifts in the wood products industry have contributed to the long-term employment decline. First, there was a drop in timber harvests from environmental concerns in the early 1990s. As harvest from federal lands reduced the amount of available raw material to mills, employment dropped, indicating that harvest reductions were a cause for the employment loss in the early 1990s.

Graph showing Oregon employment and timber harvest levels

New technologies brought another structural change to the industry by making lumber mills less labor intensive. Employment continued to drop even after harvest levels stabilized in the late 1990s, and employment did not increase much despite a housing construction boom in the mid-2000s. Jobs in wood product manufacturing per million board feet harvested dropped steadily after 2000, at least partly due to technology.

Lumber production per worker in Oregon is another way to look at efficiency gains. By combining Western Wood Products Association production data with sawmill employment data, we can create a measure of lumber production per worker. It increased rapidly in the early 2000s, going from 806,000 board feet per worker in 2000 to 1.1 million in 2005. It then dropped back to 791,000 board feet during the Great Recession. It’s likely that mills cut production through fewer hours to some extent instead of letting go of workers during the recession. After the recession, production per worker increased to the elevated levels it had reached before the recession, reaching roughly 1.2 million board feet in 2012. Production per worker has stayed close to 1.2 million board feet per worker through 2022 but dropped to 1.1 million board feet in 2023.

In addition to new technologies, smaller mills were shuttered, creating efficiency through economies of scale (larger mills can produce more per worker). The average production of sawmills operating in the western U.S. increased as smaller mills were shuttered and efficiency increased through economies of scale and new technology. Between 1990 and 2021, the number of mills in the western U.S. dropped from 600 to 144 while average production per mill increased from about 35 million board feet per year to 102 million board feet per year. The number of mills has since dropped to 141 and average production per mill dropped to around 97 million board feet per year in 2023.

Graph showing sawmills operating in the Western U.S. 1990-2023

Wood Products Are Still Important in Oregon, Especially in Rural Areas

Even with the long-term decline, wood product manufacturing is still a large industry in Oregon. In 2024, there were 22,400 jobs and roughly $1.5 billion in total payroll in the industry. While statewide the industry makes up only 1.1% of total employment and 1.1% of total payroll, the concentration is much higher in some counties, especially rural ones. For instance, in Curry County, 8.1% of total employment and 11.7% of total payroll was in wood product manufacturing. Most of the counties with a high concentration of employment in wood product manufacturing are rural.

Table showing Oregon counties measured by wood products manufacturing percent of total employment and payroll in 2024

In counties where the percent of total payroll exceeds the percent of total employment, average wages are higher in wood product manufacturing than the overall average wage. This is the case in most of the rural counties listed, indicating that wood product manufacturing provides some of the higher paying jobs in rural counties.

Jobs Generally Pay Well and Do Not Require High Levels of Education

The top 20 occupations in wood product manufacturing are mostly medium wage but do not require high levels of education. Most of the top 20 occupations have a typical entry-level education of a high school diploma or less. Some of the more technical occupations like industrial machinery mechanics and electricians have average annual wages of more than $70,000 a year and have a typical entry-level education of a high school diploma, providing opportunities for those who don’t pursue a college degree.

Table showing top 20 wood product manufacturing occupations in Oregon

Looking Ahead

Employment projections from the Oregon Employment Department show that wood product manufacturing employment is expected to gain 700 jobs (3%) between 2023 and 2033. The plywood and engineered wood products, and other wood products subsectors are expected to have 3% growth while sawmills and wood preservation is expected to drop 3%.

Like many industries, wood product manufacturing has an aging workforce reaching retirement age. This creates demand for workers through replacement needs. Aside from gaining 700 jobs between 2023 and 2033, there are expected to be roughly 8,900 openings from people leaving the industry and the labor force, largely due to retirements.