If we had cash or non-cash awards on The Smokey Wire (and maybe we should), Sean would definitely deserve one for taking the time to dive into the mysterious world of FACTS. So a major thank-you to him!
From Sean:
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Here is a little workup of the FACTS data.
I downloaded the full FACTS dataset. Caveat – FACTS (like all huge, ongoing data projects…) is messy! I am working with it here pretending like it is perfect, but we all need to know that it is not and there are plenty of places with missing or incorrectly classified data.
I first filtered to remove anything earlier than 1905 (pre-FS – you may be surprised but some records go back to the mid-1800s, Forest Reserve days presumably) and later than 2026 (the future hasn’t happened yet as far as I’m aware). Then I filtered to include status “Accomplished” and “Completed”, but not status “Planned”.
I built this spreadsheet with the full list of Activity Names and my calls on whether they count as a clearcut. I did four versions: a strict interpretation and a liberal interpretation of what a clearcut is, one for all even-aged systems (including shelterwood and seed tree, for example), and one for all even-aged and two-aged systems (including what we would call variable retention harvest today, coded in FACTS as two-aged stand clearcut with reserves). You may disagree with my calls, in which case I invite you to propose something better.
Link to “is it a clearcut?” calls:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nn6j8IbTO9g5EzrcQXA2Js04FfCGYUH7?rtpof=true&usp=drive_fs
Who knows exactly what queries were done to build the tables in the post, but what I get is pretty similar.
Clearcut (strict)
2023: 29,007 acres
2024: 24,283 acres
2025: 28,733 acres
The other three definitions are not as good of a match.
Clearcut (liberal)
2023: 34,635 acres
2024: 29,705 acres
2025: 32,917 acres
All even-aged
2023: 51,846 acres
2024: 44,898 acres
2025: 52,483 acres
All even-aged and two-aged
2023: 64,144 acres
2024: 55,520 acres
2025: 64,662 acres
Link to graph over time of National trend:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1X3tDwWlbd_uKoQRdO5-iCRaTMMz1cjBk&usp=drive_fs
Link to acres of harvest per year by each of the four definitions by National Forest:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GsaHjRcXsdzbQmFVDAMhR3ZParjVtDf-?rtpof=true&usp=drive_fs
Link to the full FACTS dataset as a table (340 MB file – no GIS required, you can open it in Excel):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17WiGYUn5cDWuQsvZ1mdFNYhxdkEKDfi1?rtpof=true&usp=drive_fs
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From Sharon:
I’m a bit stuck at the varieties of definitions and how they could add up to meaningful numbers of any kind. At the 30K level, there is only even-aged and uneven-aged management (or is there?), maybe we should ask a current silviculture prof? Uneven-aged in many places won’t get back intolerant species, which we would need for diversity; and tolerants by themselves are not resilient to wildfires and tend to be host to a variety of diseases and insects. At the same time, they tend to be fairly good (along with LPP) at reproducing themselves, while the intolerant may need more assistance.
Would concerns about NRV and fuels lead us instead to a different taxonomy of treatments, perhaps based on density reduction and ladder fuels? Or are our current definitions not exactly fit for current purposes, but not worth changing? How do these numbers crosswalk with fuels acres accomplished, or do they?
Meanwhile, what do you all think of the exercise of asking the same “why do you clearcut, if you do?” of all forests and seeing what the national story looks like?