5th Generation Oregonian currently employed full-time by two great-grandchildren. OSU PhD Forest Sciences. Professional and research focus has been reforestation planning, wildfire history, and forest management. Regularly published on these topics 45+ years. Beer.
In late November, Lake Tahoe writer Dana Tibbits arranged three videotaped panel discussions with a consortium of more than a dozen NWI wildfire experts for the purpose of declaring a National Wildfire Emergency. These statements totaled 2 1/2 hours of recordings, more than 36 pages of transcription, and have been summarized into a 37-minute video (below). Here is the YouTube Index of the individuals and topics on the video for brief or selective review purposes:
00:10 National Wildfire Institute (NWI) history
00:54 Dana Tibbitts, National Wildfire Emergency introduction
02:32 Bob Zybach, US Forest Service wildfire history
05:44 Joe Reddan, NEPA regulations & DEQ questions
10:04 Wayne Knauf, 1897 Organic Act & local communities
11:43 Ted Stubblefield/Phil Aune, Threatened & Endangered Species
13:41 Chuck Sheley, Wildfire smoke, public health & safety
This documentary of the 1962 Bel Air Fire presents a better analysis of the 2025 Fires than anything I’ve seen currently. The warnings of unmanaged chaparral and Santa Ana winds coupled with wooden buildings and inadequate water pressure seems to have been ignored — in fact, it appears that the fire and police departments 60+ years ago were better prepared for the unprecedented event than their modern counterparts, who should have learned this lesson and been able to avoid much of this disaster.
The predictions were accurate, the recommendations ignored. Maybe this time people will pay better attention. Our forests and shrublands need to be actively managed — particularly in residential areas — if we are going to, again, limit the frequency and severity of these predictable catastrophic events.
This is “A Book Review and Associated Thoughts” regarding Christopher Burchfield’s 2014 book, The Tinder Box – How Politically Correct Ideology Destroyed the U.S. Forest Service. It was written by Karl Brauneis, posted here with his permission, and published last year in Smokejumper Magazine. Karl is a retired USFS Forester and Fire Management Officer and “Missoula Smokejumper Class of ‘77” member.
The Tinder Box is a must read for those who struggle to understand what happened to the U.S. Forest Service in our lifetime. Burchfield begins with a short background of the why and the how. He breaks open the Bernardi Consent Decree (1981) that required the Forest Service to reach the goal of a 43% female work force in just a few short years.
This is how, in part, Chief Max Peterson and his Pacific Southwest (California) Regional Forester Zane Grey Smith destroyed the U.S. Forest Service. There was no need for the Bernardi Consent Decree because the Forest Service had done nothing wrong. The Justice Department, representing the Forest Service, could have easily won the case brought by plaintiff Gene Bernardi. However, Max Peterson wanted to re-make the Forest Service and he certainly did. Once a stellar organization it is now ranked among the worst of the federal agencies to work for.
As an older man I feel some compassion for men like Zane Grey Smith. The consent decree made life a living hell for not only those who were affected by it but by those who proposed and initiated it. Burchfield uncovers the trauma experienced by so many.
The root of destruction is found in the Frankfurt school of Germany and its quest to spread their neo-Marxist philosophy throughout the world. In short, communism could claim only limited success in countries where the masses attempted an overthrow. The only true success had been in Russia with the Bolsheviks. And it was bloody. The neo-Marxist philosophy taught that the destruction of western civilization could only be accomplished through the elites via an insidious takeover of western institutions. A demolition from within. From the top down. We see this everywhere today from the destruction of the middle class and open borders to a 32 trillion dollar national debt.
The Frankfurt school of thought was first imported to Columbia University in the 1930’s and soon spread to other institutions of higher learning. We might call this the same spirit that sparked and drove the Nazis in their quest for world domination.
When reading The Tinder Box my thoughts affirmed the psychological study of the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. An Army psychologist assigned to the trials arrived at this secular conclusion: “Evil is the absence of empathy.” This also confirmed what I experienced in my forest service career. I began under a Christian culture and set of norms. A strong Judeo-Christian work ethic existed. This was soon taken from us and replaced with neo-Marxist dogma. Their tenants violated not only the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution (equal protection of the law) but also the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Title VII), as passed by the US Congress, and the Civil Service merit promotion standards. But the law was ignored and twisted in policy by our leaders. Their absence of empathy only accelerated. Discrimination against white males became a corporate manifesto. Part way through my career, candidates for promotion were no longer evaluated by their knowledge of forestry, fire and range but rather by their adherence to affirmative action and multiculturalism. Consideration for promotion was now based on race, color, sex and creed. Females were given privileged and preferential treatment. When I left the agency all of the forest supervisors and park superintendents in the greater Yellowstone area were female.
Christopher Burchfield writes about the Plutonium Rule:
“Implicit with the extralegal incorporation of 43 % (Females by Consent Decree) was the extinction of the Golden Rule, the universally accepted premise, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Dead too was the notion of reciprocity – that everyone has a right to just and equal treatment and a responsibility to ensure that others receive the same just and equal treatment.
In their place the agency introduced a lethal plutonium rule. Incoming employees would not be required to adapt to their senior employee’s expectations or traditions – so essential to meeting mission objectives. Rather, the new employees would see to it that the seniors adapted to their expectations and innovations.”
Then there was the clandestine back room development and enforcement of quotas by the agency, unknown to Samuel Conti the federal judge presiding over the case. When he learned that the Forest Service had gone behind his back the judge had enough. He then held the agency to their arrogant stupidity and labeled it “consent decree as amended”.
In contrast? Hubert Humphry vigorously declared when addressing the wealth of Civil Rights laws passed by congress:“I will start eating the pages of the law, page by page, if anyone can find a clause that calls for quotas or preferences of racial balance in jobs or education.”
Pete Barker was one Forest Service fire engine captain interviewed in the book. Asked about the performance of the Forest Service from when he began in 1977 until he retired in 2007. His answer? He guessed the agency was running at 50%. Later, Randal O’Tool in “The Rot Starts at the Top” would evaluate the agency at 20%.
This is my second reading of The Tinder Box. Burchfield explains so much in detail that I had to read the book again.
Christopher writes; “It was not simply the numbers Stewart (Pacific Southwest Regional Forester replacing Smith) and Chief Forester Robertson (replacing Peterson) were seeking to transform. Lace curtain radicals almost without peer, they were determined to uproot by trencher, bulldozer and front end loader, every last vestige of the forest service culture advanced by Pinchot, Silcox and McArdle.”
The women of the forest service even filed a class action suit separate from the men against the leaders of demolition de-construction. The women were then called in a very condescending way by court monitor Jeannie Meyer “good old boys in women’s clothing,” There was no end to their arrogance and subterfuge.
Burchfield surmises;
“Postmodern forestry’s real mission was the tree by tree, acre by acre, employee by employee destruction of a male dominated institution that since its inception had performed with such striking success. If dismantling that male institution injured the interests of more women than it benefitted, that was unfortunate but incidental to the task.”
When the South Canyon (1994 – Death of 14 Firefighters on Storm King Mountain) tragedy unfolded the subsequent investigation brought new concerns to congress. Why was so little of the money allocated to finance fire preparedness ever seen on the ground? Tired of lip service congress forced the agency to develop a fire budget process that would ensure that the money sent from Washington went to the field. Our small fire budget on a “cowboy ranger district” in Wyoming went from $7,000 to $77,000 dollars overnight. The bureaucrats had scammed 90% of the districts fire budget to finance their social agenda. I was not alone. A hot shot superintendent told me that 60% of his operating budget had been siphoned off the top. It was an eye opener for me. But the betrayal only continued.
Arlen S. Roll of the Northern Rocky Mountain Region was bold in his zeal to usurp federal law with forest service policy. He seems more a patron of the Goering – Goebbels inner circle than a forest service official. Already the agency had lost 500 cases in court that required backpay and promotion to individuals suing the agency for discrimination due to affirmative action quotas. The costs alone in California for these losses ran at around 2 million dollars. It is estimated that another 500 cases were settled out of court in favor of the plaintiffs. But Arlen pressed on claiming there was no such thing as reverse discrimination and that employees must follow policy or find another job. While others worked in the shadows to break the law Arlen was bold in his proclamations. Christopher Burchfield states “What is so astonishing about him was his Hitlerian bluntness.” The real power in government no longer resided with its elected officials or in the rule of law.
It was the dawn of an agency weaponized against its own employees. Policy would now usurp the law. But the new Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas cried foul when he took over. He told his employees to tell the truth and follow the law. The entrenched ignored Thomas and continued to undermine their own chief. The culture change was now complete and further sealed with the early buy outs of the late 1990’s that gutted the agencies’ remaining resource management expertise. When Jack Ward Thomas left he noted nine matters he never wanted to deal with again. The top of the list included political correctness, the violation of civil rights and dismissal of equal employee opportunities.
A deep state, a shadow government or fourth branch of the government was now reality. While the agency consolidated field units and closed ranger stations, guard stations, forest fire lookout towers and some forest supervisors offices it also added 300 new employees to the Washington headquarters. In Wyoming I counted six small town district ranger stations closed. Two forests and one national grassland (Routt – Medicine Bow – Thunder Basin) were combined across the Colorado and Wyoming state lines and their respective congressional districts to promote centralization. The forest service soon became irrelevant in rural America as the Washington office seized more power to promote their policies of social re-invention, environmentalism and off forest hiring practices.
Local individuals who knew their communities became difficult to hire under a new national and regional employment and review system focused on multiculturalism. This further separated the agency from what rural roots might have been left. Forest service engine captain Tom Locker stated that the agencies subversive goal was to, “Out and out culturally cleanse the small towns of America.”
I have worked with some outstanding women in the forest service and fire. Woman that will be the first to stand up for civil rights and merit promotion. I have coached boys and girls in high school (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) cross country and track. I have sons and daughters and nine grandchildren so far. So, why should I write this review? Because I want an even and fair playing field for all of them. Discrimination based on race, color, sex and creed is against the law and has no place in our society. “Content of character” is what counts. We must also be confident that our federal agencies follow the law and not contrived policy.
We live in the present and not yesterday. Our actions speak for today. I also know that we are bound to repeat yesterday’s mistakes if we do not study the past. What happened to the U.S. Forest Service is history that should not be swept under the rug. In history you take the bad with the good. You learn from it.
The individual tragedy for many of us is that our boy hood dreams in the calling of conservation at a once premier forest service lay dashed upon the rocks. As a hot shot, smokejumper and forester I went from the “golden boy” to the “black sheep” in a few short years. I never changed. But the agency did. I loved a forest service that I soon came to distrust. Tragically, I experienced the change from a highly decentralized conservation learning organization to a highly centralized politically correct environmental bureaucracy.
In closing. There are agendas and then there is reality. When the agenda does not match reality we call its proponents delusional. Thank you Christopher Burchfield for exposing the delusion of the Great Betrayal in The Tinder Box.
This is the second part of the second article in a two-part series regarding fire management by the US Forest Service near the towns of Oakridge and Westfir, Oregon. The first article focused on forest restoration and prescribed burning on Jim’s Creek, in the Willamette National Forest, and was linked and discussed here: https://forestpolicypub.com/2024/11/01/jims-creek-restoration-a-burning-opportunity/
Fig. 5. Industrial Plantation. Following WW II, most reforestation in the Douglas Fir Region has been to industrial standards, with a focus on fiber production and future jobs. Planting seedlings in rows following logging or wildfire, or converting old meadows, prairies, and berry fields to trees, results in a significant loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat, while creating increased opportunity for deadly crown fires. Russ Sapp and Dave Sullivan in Preacher Creek plantation in Lincoln County. Photo by author, April 5, 2024.
1897 Organic Act
In 1897 Congress passed the “Organic Act” to manage and protect US public forestlands. 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 theoretical basis to all subsequent 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 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, working closely with Yale-educated forester and close associate, Gifford Pinchot, transferred management of the Forest Reserves from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture, creating the US Forest Service.
Pinchot became the first Chief of the new agency and wrote that its mission would be: “Where conflicting interests must be reconciled, the question shall always be answered from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.”
Theoretically, that has remained the mission of the Forest Service to the present time, and all subsequent forest planning laws and regulations are based on this vision and the 1897 Organic Act; including the “expanded purposes” of the 1960 Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act (MUSY) and the 1976 National Forest Management Act (NFMA).
The 1960 Act included the considerations of range, water, recreation, and wildlife, along with timber, as renewable resources, and the 1976 Act changed forest planning by requiring the Forest Service to use an “interdisciplinary approach” to resource management — and to include “public involvement in preparing and revising forest plans.”
Fig. 6. Crevice Creek Plantation. This 60-year-old industrial-type plantation along Crevice Creek experienced 100% mortality. Despite the relative small size of these snags, they will remain very flammable and an increasing risk of wildfire if they are not removed. Although they no longer have value for lumber production, they can likely be used to produce commercial fuel pellets for several more years. Note the two-year understory of invasive grasses and brush that have replaced the green trees and shaded ground. They will form volatile flash and potential ladder fuels for the thousands of tons of dry, pitchy firewood that has been created. Photo by author, October 28, 2024.
Local Effects: Smoke & Jobs
Bryan Cutchen is the Mayor of Oakridge, and he says wildfire smoke for the past four years, from the Cedar Creek Fire and others, has done great damage to the town’s recreation and hospitality businesses. Others in the community point to the 2015 and 2017 fire years as a major beginning to these events.
The combination of reputation and reality, smoky air, road closures, and burned campgrounds have kept people away from Oakridge in recent years. The discomfort and poor health associated with breathing smoke and the reduced visibility and public access following the fires has caused serious economic damage to the community.
Rob DeHarpport was the third generation of his family to live in Oakridge. His grandfather worked for the Forest Service and his father owned a store in town, and that’s where he graduated from High School in 1977 and has lived most of his life. After graduating, he spent a summer fighting fires with the Oakridge Ranger District, and from 2012 to 2015 he became Mayor of Westfir, before retiring and moving east of the Cascades.
During the years he was growing up in town, and for many years after, he can only recall a few times when Oakridge became smoky — typically for a day or two when smoke would drift into town from field burning in the Willamette Valley or from fall slash pile burning in the woods.
In 1975, when Tim Bailey began his career as a Forester for the Oakridge District Ranger Station, the town had eight gas stations, eight bars, two jewelry stores, two florist shops, a movie theatre, bowling alley, skating rink, and 400 people working at the Pope & Talbot Mill. Today there are three gas stations, up from just one a few years ago, and a one-man firewood cutting business.
Bailey’s memories are similar to DeHarpport’s regarding the general lack of smoky summers and falls. At that time Oakridge considered itself the “Tree Planting Capital of the World” and still has an annual festival to recall those years.
When the 9,000-acre Shady Beach Fire burned in 1988, the 195 million board feet of snags and surviving trees were quickly sold and harvested — creating an estimated 200 local jobs — and the land was then planted. Today, it is a healthy stand of 35-year-old trees nearing merchantable size.
Bailey wasn’t directly involved in the Shady Beach Fire but was the silviculturist for the subsequent Warner Creek Fire. The starkly different histories of the two fires characterized the dramatic change in USFS management philosophies that took place with the arrival of spotted owls in the Douglas Fir Region in 1990.
This Table with shows all Air Quality Index (AQI) numbers and PM25 measures for Oakridge, Eugene, Sisters, and Bend during the smokiest days for those communities during the Cedar Creek Fire. All days that reached an AQI of 100 are listed; those above 200 are bolded; and all above 300 are also made red.
The highest PM25 readings for those days are also given, and because Sisters was only impacted for a few days, progressive fire sizes are also listed in that column.
These data were provided by Ryan Porter, who authored the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) report on Oregon statewide air quality for 2022. DEQ AQI numbers are based on a scale of 0-50 (Good); 51-100 (Moderate); 101-150 (Unhealthy for sensitive groups); 151-200 (Unhealthy); 201-300 (Very Unhealthy); and 301-500 (Hazardous).
Compare these numbers to those given earlier for September 10 in Seattle and Portland to better understand the localized severity of this problem.
PM25 numbers represent particulate matters in the air that are 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter. Readings above 35 are considered “unhealthy for short-term exposure,” and the National Institute of Health states that “people with respiratory diseases” account for a “large proportion” of “non-accidental deaths” in the US. The stated reason is because PM25 pollution “causes asthma, respiratory inflammation, jeopardizes lung functions, and even promotes cancers.”
A recent public health study concluded that more than 10,000 people a year in the US die from wildfire smoke pollution, and recent University of California research indicated PM25 exposure from wildfire smoke likely killed 55,000 Californians alone in the 11 years from 2008 to 2018.
Fig. 7. Second-growth Douglas fir progeny competing with ancestral old-growth for sunlight, water, and soil. The original wide-spacing of the older trees is indicated by the large stobs that remain from lower limbs lost to competitive shading along their trunks. These remaining old-growth are now at increasing risk of a crown fire, in addition to direct competition from younger trees. Removing the second-growth to protect the old-growth could be accomplished at a good profit, as well as greatly reducing risk of crown fire and resulting loss of remaining old-growth. Photo by author, April 5, 2024.
Recommendations
What can be done to fix this deadly, costly mess? It took 35 years for the Willamette National Forest to transform itself from an increasingly unpopular actively-managed clearcutting marketplace to a seasonal inferno, causing massive air pollutions for weeks, killing millions of wildlife and old-growth trees, bankrupting local businesses, ruining the scenery, ending recreation, blocking our public roads with gates, and charging US taxpayers billions of dollars to make it all possible.
Even though significant fault can be found with the design of previous timber sales and reforestation projects, a course correction rather than a complete reversal would have been a more reasonable approach to spotted owl politics. Subsequent planning processes and environmental lawsuits have been allowed — and even encouraged through favorable rulings and legislation — to transform our once beautiful and productive National Forests into ugly, costly, and deadly firebombs. How to fix?
These photos, and millions of others, clearly show the problem. Passively managed conifer forestlands and plantations don’t somehow magically transform themselves into “critical habitat” for obscure animals, or into 400-year-old stands of trees teeming with “biodiversity.” No, some grow old, they die, and if nothing is done, they burn and are replaced with a new generation of plants, often the same species, but in different configurations.
The real problem began in the 1970s and the deep ecology movement, when the woods became “wildlands” and people were pathogens and the enemies of “nature.” Then the academic myth of the “healthy forest” containing “big, dead, standing trees,” large logs scattered around on the ground, and a “multi-layered canopy of diverse species” was invented.
To these “New Forestry” ecologists, life appeared to exist in a terrarium, where the ideal was a “non-declining, even-flow, naturally functioning ecosystem” teeming with endangered species and incredible biodiversity. Their computers “proved” this ideal could be achieved “again” — if only we’d eliminate people, their matches, and their wildlife-disturbing road systems.
Environmental activists, their lawyers, and politicians attempted to transform this fiction into a vision for our public lands, and it has never worked. Instead, death, fire, smoke, and poverty has resulted — as clearly predicted by actual foresters and knowledgeable residents.
If this fire had happened 40 years ago, in 1982 instead of 2022, many things would have been different. Tens of thousands of fewer acres would have burned; millions more wildlife would have lived; thousands more old-growth would have survived; there would have been only a fraction of the smoke for far fewer days; and the wood would have been immediately salvaged — and at a profit to local families and to American taxpayers. Then the land would have been reforested as well as possible, based on the best intentions at that time.
A concerted effort to return to the common sense purposes of the 1897 Organic Act, Pinchot’s fundamental mission statement, the 10:00 AM Policy, and the 1962 MUSY would be wonderful. That would be my best recommendation.
This is the second article in a two-part series regarding fire management by the US Forest Service near the towns of Oakridge and Westfir, Oregon. The first article focused on forest restoration and prescribed burning on Jim’s Creek, in the Willamette National Forest, and was linked and discussed here: https://forestpolicypub.com/2024/11/01/jims-creek-restoration-a-burning-opportunity/
This second article is 3500 words, has eight photos. a map, and a detailed table, so I’m going to post in two parts: the timeline and extent — with opinions — on the 2022 Cedar Creek Fire; and the health and economic impacts of the fire on local communities as compared to historical Forest Service responsibilities — with recommendations. Both articles are part of a 13-year series I have been writing for Oregon Fish & Wildlife Journal, and this current article can be found here: http://nwmapsco.com/ZybachB/Articles/Magazines/Oregon_Fish_&_Wildlife_Journal/20250108_Cedar_Creek/Zybach_20250108.pdf
Fig. 1. Cedar Creek Fire Smoke Plume, September 9, 2022. Plume is from the west side of Maiden Peak, viewed from the south end of Davis Lake about 4:00 PM. Foreground snags are mostly ponderosa pine from the 2003 Davis Fire, which burned 23,000 acres. Some salvage logging had taken place but was stopped by litigation. Reproduction is mostly ponderosa and lodgepole pine, with some Douglas fir, which may have been planted among the natural seeding. Plume is blowing toward Bend. Photo by Rob DeHarpport.
The 2022 Cedar Creek Fire in Lane County and the Willamette National Forest in western Oregon, burned 127,311 acres. This number included 11,709 acres of so-called “critical habitat” (which the Forest Service calls “CH”) for spotted owls (“NSO”), as defined by college professors (PhDs), litigation (EAJA), and the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Local towns of Oakridge and Westfir were severely threatened by the wildfire, were blanketed with unhealthy smoke for nearly six weeks, and forced to evacuate entirely for four days while power was shut down.
This didn’t need to happen. The wildfire was said to have been poorly managed by the Forest Service (“USFS”) for an entire month before predictably exploding on an east wind in early September. By the time it was fully extinguished on November 22, taxpayers had spent more than 132 million dollars to employ more than 2500 firefighters that had operated dozens of helicopters and heavy equipment for the previous three months..
I visited the Cedar Creek Burn a few months ago with three friends to view the results of two years of Forest Service projects following the fire. We had to get a special permit to pass a locked gate that was installed to keep the public away from the site. That seemed to be it: approximately two billion-plus feet of standing timber, rotting in place, primed to burn again — only much hotter next time — no apparent response, and the public is locked out.
The November, 2022 USFS BAER (“Burned Area Emergency Response”) report doesn’t mention the obviously increased risk of deadly wildfire, but states instead that: “Threats include additional loss of habitat in the fire area due to blowdown, mass soil movement, flooding, and insects and disease.” But not wildfire?
Further: “A secondary issue includes determination if the proposed BAER stabilization treatments could affect spotted owl nest sites or result in disruption of nesting if conducted during the critical breeding season from March 1-July 15.”
Say what? More than 125,00 acres of trees are dead, nearly 12,000 acres of so-called “CH” has been destroyed, and yet the government can’t do anything about it for half the year because of SWO “critical breeding season?” How can this be written, reviewed, and publicly distributed, much less taken seriously?
Speaking in metrics and acronyms and producing voluminous busy-work reports seems to be the effective strategy. Also, the apparent NSO CH “critical breeding period” has apparently now been extended to the entire year, as there was no evidence at all of either USFS or spotted owl occupation at that time — just a locked gate.
Cedar Creek Fire Timeline
The Cedar Creek Fire started by lightning strikes on August 1, 2022, on the Willamette National Forest, about 15 miles east of the towns of Oakridge and Westfir. According to the BAER report, it couldn’t be extinguished as it “grew rapidly” in “inaccessible terrain,” and then was “held at control features for around one month” until the east winds arrived — as generally expected — in early September.
It is currently unknown why smokejumpers weren’t sent to extinguish the fire, but a helicopter with two “rappelers” flew over at 4:45 PM and reported it was about two acres in size and “burning in heavy timber midway up a 40% slope on a significant cliff with limited options for egress.”
At that point the rappelers turned down the assignment, reporting the terrain was “too hazardous for safe access.” Instead, a plan was developed to hike firefighters into the fire “during the next shift,” while helicopters performed bucket drops to limit its growth. The fire was estimated to be about five acres on August 2 and grew to an estimated 500 acres on August 3.
By August 15, the fire had grown to 4,422 acres with 0% containment. All recreational trailheads and dispersed camping were closed both west and north of Waldo Lake. The following day, August 16, the Forest Service posted this statement, along with a three-minute video on its new Facebook public information page:
“Since it started on August 1st, the Cedar Creek Fire has been slowly getting bigger, moving east into wilderness and roadless areas, and south towards the bottom of Cedar and Black Creeks. Hundreds of firefighters have been deployed around the fire, creating primary and backup firelines. This effort is guided by a strategic planning process that combines the latest fire science with on-the ground observations and years of firefighting experience. To learn more about the strategic planning process and why it is being used at Cedar Creek, watch this short video.”
Fig. 2. “Nature’s Clearcut.” View of increasing risk of wildfire the longer these snags remain in place. What had been large, growing plants filled with water were transformed in minutes by fire into massive amounts of pitchy, air-dried firewood. Unless something is done with these dead trees, the next fire through here — as with all predictable Douglas fir reburns — will be much hotter and cause more widespread damage than this fire. When snags fall before they reburn, they can also cause far more damage to the soil. Mark Cosby and Rob DeHarpport provide scale. Photo by author, October 28, 2024.
On August 27, the fire had grown to 7,632 acres with 0% containment. The “strategic planning process” involved possibly the very first use of USFS “PODs”:
“The District identified a contingency line based on a fuels assessment known as PODs (Potential Operational Delineations) well west of the incident. This line would provide a reliable fuel break in the event of a major east wind as well as any future fires that may threaten the communities of Oakridge and Westfir. While fire modeling and seasonality during the early stages of the incident did not indicate a strong likelihood that this line would be utilized, all the teams assigned continued to work on this contingency option.”
On September 4 the fire began burning through the 1996 10,400-acre Charlton Burn in the Wilderness along the north side of Waldo Lake. The fire had never been salvaged or treated and was covered with fallen snags that burned very hot and sterilized the soil in much of the area.
By September 8, the fire had grown from 27,000 acres and reached over 73,000 acres according to news sources — however, the government reported an increase to only 33,000 acres, and growing to 52,000 acres on September 10.
On September 9, the USFS official online information source for wildfires, “InciWeb,” reported the “Current Situation” as: “East winds, low humidities, and high temperatures will cause the fire to be active today. The highest activity will occur where lichen is present in trees and there is a high concentration of down wood. Where winds align with slopes, tree canopy fire and fire spotting are anticipated. E winds 15-20; gusts to 50.”
Given this report, the Lane County Sherriff’s Department made the decision to move Oakridge and Westfir into a “Level 3” evacuation, where residents are asked to leave by a given time and access roads are typically blocked. Powerlines were “de-energized” throughout the wind event and the duration of the evacuations, which were ordered for the following day.
Smoke from the fire moved into southwest Washington on September 10, and Seattle recorded the worst air quality of any major city in the world, with Portland coming in third out of the top 90, and Lahore, Pakistan sandwiched between the two. Seattle’s “AQI” was 170 and Portland’s was 152 (more on this later).
Fig 3. Blair Lake. This was a popular recreation spot for fishing and boating before the Cedar Creek Fire. It is now gated off from the public and surrounded by dead trees. In earlier times the lake would have formed a natural firebreak, and it is unlikely that the large amount of second-growth trees that crowned would have been present in such large numbers. A few trees that survived the fire might be good as a seed source for future reforestation efforts. No information on reopening. Photo by author, October 28, 2024.
Sometime at this point the fire began burning into the infamous 1991 Warner Creek Fire scar, which had made national news for several years due to threatened legal actions and active anti-logging protests by “concerned environmentalists.”
The 8,973-acre fire had cost $10 million to control and killed an estimated 180 million board feet (mmbf) of timber. Of this amount, only 35 mmbf were scheduled for sale, but two years of protests reduced that number to nine mmbf. Five years of protests and litigation later, no salvage had been completed, and the proposed sales number became only two mmbf. Then, 540,000 board feet were finally sold, and then the sale canceled. In September 2022, it all burned up.
By September 11 the fire had grown to 86,000 acres, more than 2,000 homes had been evacuated, and all highway access to the towns was blocked. Two days later the power was restored, and residents were allowed to return to their homes.
On September 12 the wind had shifted to the northwest and smoke began affecting air quality in Sisters and Bend, while clearing the air in Oakridge for a few days.
Fig. 4. Spring Prairie. There are numerous oak trees, huckleberry patches, and beargrass meadows in the Willamette National Forest in the vicinity of Oakridge. These are strong indications the land was regularly occupied and burned by Molalla and Klamath people during early historical time — and likely for many generations before. Several of the surviving trees around the prairie’s perimeter might be good seed sources for future reforestation efforts. Photo by author, October 28, 2024.
On September 16, the Central Oregon Daily News reported the fire had grown to 92,596 acres and videotaped Joan Kluwe, the “Public Information Officer for the Alaska Incident Management Team,” saying: “We have 92 engines, 39 crews, 113 types of heavy equipment, and 19 helicopters working on the fire.”
The total cost to “fight the fire, maintain and operate the machinery and take care of the personnel” to that date was given as $57,946,000.
On September 25, the fire had grown to 114,104 acres with 20% containment.
By October 27, the fire was 127,283 acres with 60% containment. Due to seasonal dropping temperatures and rising humidity, fire progression had nearly stopped, and the workforce had been reduced to two crews, one helicopter, two masticators. and four engines.
The following day, Fall rains and snow began, and finally, on November 22, the Cedar Creek Fire was declared “out.”
One of these efforts is the “National Wildfire Emergency” project envisioned and spearheaded by Lake Tahoe writer, Dana Tibbitts, whose current and former homes have been subjected to evacuations, wildfire threats, and deadly smoke pollution several times in the current and recent years.
A cornerstone to this effort has been three recorded Zoom meetings with 16 prepared statements by 14 participants — including a dozen national and regional experts on wildfire management and forest restoration. I have been working with Dana and Nadine Bailey and Luke Van Mol by developing transcriptions of the various statements in order to better document these events and contribute to the video editing process.
One of the experts contributing to this project is Phil Aune. His statements are very much in accordance with recent discussions on this blog regarding the abrupt departure from proven reforestation methods and research by the US Forest Service and others in the 1980s:
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My name is Phil Aune. I have a 50-year career in the forestry arena — 37 years with the U.S. Forest Service, and with my last assignment as 13 years as a research program manager. After that I served six years as Vice-President of the California Forestry Association, and since I flunked retirement after we moved to Spokane, Washington, I went to work as a consultant for the American Forest Resource Council.
We’ve lived in Spokane, Washington for the last 20 years, but I constantly go back to California [to] see my grandchildren, and on the way I usually take time to look at some of the wildfires. It’s easy to see — they’re everywhere.
I’m also on the Board of Directors of the Evergreen Foundation, that’s Jim’s [Petersen] foundation, and I’m also a member of the Board of Directors of the National Museum of Forest Service History.
What I’m here to talk about today is what I call “the legacy.” The legacy of wildfires. And I’m primarily talking about Oregon, Washington, and California, where I have some experience. I also see it in Idaho and Montana, in my travels around those States.
The first point I see is the vast majority of the dead trees are not being salvaged. The first legacy that we’re going to see is thousands and thousands of acres of black, standing trees, as long as they’re standing for the next 20 to 30 years.
Meanwhile, trees will ultimately die and fall to the ground and become fuel for the inevitable next wildfire, making it even more difficult to control and, more importantly, all that fuel will now be on the surface, and that surface fuels will concentrate the heat on the upper end of the soil profile, severely damaging the soil.
So it’s a long-term productivity effect that no one has really researched extensively — to follow up exactly what’s happening to these wildfires, especially the reburns that have occurred in wildfire areas.
Very little of the ground in the legacy is being reforested, and we’re developing a huge reforestation backlog. Keep in mind that in 1976, in a National Forest Management Act portion, Congress dictated us — to the Forest Service — to develop the reforestation background.
And here’s what the National Forest Management Act said, in Section 4 (d)(1): “It is the policy of Congress that all forested lands in the National Forest system shall be maintained in appropriate forest cover . . .”
“Shall be maintained in appropriate forest cover!” Where in the heck is that going on?
“. . . with the species of tree, degree of stocking, rate of growth, and conditions of stands designated to secure the maximum benefits for multiple use and stained yield concepts in the land management, according to the land management plans.”
So why aren’t they reforesting these lands? That’s a big question.
Congress even developed the funding mechanism necessary to reforest all the lands in the backlog. It was called R and I Fund: “Reforestation and Stand Improvement.” The money came from offshore oil receipts. It wasn’t even a problem in getting the funds — and if we start looking at our resources in total, we can expand our oil production, expand our revenues from that. It all works together to making life easier for everyone.
The real reforestation backlog that was declared in 1976 has grown substantially. And if you look at the last 20 years, that’s where the bulk of the backlog is growing.
Well, what’s going to happen to all of these lands?
The lands that are not actively reforested will change into brush and hardwood communities for the next 75 to 100 years. Yes, they will naturally regenerate, but how much time do you have? How much time do our children have?How much time do our grandchildren, our great grandchildren? This is a real issue. We’re leaving black forest and brush fields in what once was magnificent conifer forest . . . that’s the condition that our grandchildren will receive.
Next point I’d like to make is we don’t have to do that. We have the knowledge and skills from science-based reforestation. And I can speak personally from that, as a research program manager whose mission was to look at the entire reforestation cycle for the last . . . 13 years of my career — plus the practical experience I had during the time Iwas in active management.
The Forest Service has this background, and it includes the following necessary steps:
Collection and storage of the seeds — the cones and the seeds that we’re going to need to reforest the land. It’s a no-brainer. We have to establish nurseries to grow these seedlings. We don’t have to have bare-root nurseries. We can go with container nurseries. But the Forest Service has to start expanding if they’re ever going to get back on top of thereforestation backlog.
Here’s probably the most critical point: you need prompt salvage of the wildfires. Roger [Jaegel] spoke about that at length. That what’s happening — if you don’t salvage them, those trees are still going to be there, and they’re fuel. And then, from a common-sense point of view: does it make sense to cut green trees when you got thousands and thousands of dead trees to cut that are still utilizable?
We need to do proper site preparation. We’ve got to have planting crews available. It’s a temporary work job, and we definitely need to provide for common-sense planting crews and have that workforce available.
The biggest point we have to do is prepare to reduce plant competition after planting because, as we live in most of the California, Oregon, and Washington, in the dry Mediterranean type of environments, the seedlings have to survive with the moisture that’s left in the soil, and unless you control the grass and the brush — competing plants — all of your planting efforts will be for nil, as many, many of the trees die. I’ve investigated thousands of acres of dead seedlings, and the biggest factor that you find after planting, and you go look at why they die, is we didn’t control plant competition.
Reforestation is a commitment to all of these processes — and just as much as not reforesting is a commitment to understanding and recognizing that it’s going to take centuries for all these forests to eventually regenerate naturally.
Joe [Reddan] mentioned the Organic Act of 1897. When Congress [passed the Act, it had as] one of the key purposes to provide for the protection and maintenance of our National Forests [ . . .]. How can we look the public in the eye and say: “we are providing for the protection and maintenance?”
The second major factor was: protect the headwaters of navigable streams. Where, on God’s Green Earth, have theyever protected the headwaters of navigable streams with using concepts like “managing wildfires for resourcebenefits,” which is just a euphemism for not fighting fires promptly.
The last one was that they — after they provide the protection and maintenance — the third purpose was to provide for continuous supply of timber for the citizens of the United States. Good luck on that one! Thank you very much.
I have been writing about the oak and pine savanna project on Jim’s Creek for more than 10 years. This summer I revisited the site with its architect, Tim Bailey, who spent the majority of his career on The Willamette National Forest in Lane County, Oregon.
The text is 2700 words, but here are the concluding two paragraphs:
“Jim’s Creek needs to be completed. All 638 acres should have been burned 10 years ago, as planned and paid for. If people actually care about “critical habitat” and “biological diversity” — which are legal terms, not science — they should burn Jim’s Creek now, this fall, when the Molala would have burned it. If the Forest Service can’t do it, how about a local business, as in pre-spotted owl litigation times? Or the volunteer fire department? Prescribed fires are a lot cheaper and safer than wildfires, and this would be a great opportunity to publicly display that difference.
“Jim’s Creek has good road and stream boundaries, fuel preparation could be done in a few days time, and trained crews are available as wildfires are being extinguished. Late summer and fall burns, as people have done for thousands of years, would greatly reduce risk and severity of wildfires, and is the pattern that native plants and animals have both adapted to and thrived until now.”
[This Post includes two JPEG Tables. Any one who can help correct, fill, and/or map this data would be very much appreciated.]
About 15 years ago, 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) and was in the process of becoming more formal a few years ago, when Bruce became ill and died. Without a leader or formal organization, members have remained active, mostly via informal email discussions, local meetings, phone calls, and proposals. Promotions of Michael Rain’s “Call to Action” and Jim Petersen’s “First, Put Out the Fire!” have been key group efforts to effect needed change as to how the USFS can better manage its wildfires and forestlands — and including immediate snag salvage and site preparation moving forward, followed by better reforestation planning and forest maintenance strategies for future generations.
These efforts continue, and were recently expanded with Rob DeHarpport’s concern over the increasing number of rural towns being damaged or destroyed in forest fires. That insight has led to me, Petersen, Lake Tahoe writer Dana Tibbitts, and NWI members such as Roger Jaegel, Bill Derr, and Bill Dennison, to begin assembling a list of affected communities in order to develop a baseline for further analysis. An Excel file was established for this purpose and our initial findings — summarized in the following two tables — were startling. So far, more than 70 communities are listed, beginning in 1905, most such fires have occurred in the past 10 years, and almost all of them were started on National Forests, and most of those are in the legal range of spotted owls and subjected to the NWFP.
Initially the listing started with the Peshtigo and Great Michigan forest fires of 1871, but from the outset the focus has been on towns most recently burned and rebuilding, and on towns currently threatened by wildfire risks on adjacent and nearby forestlands. There was no attempt to list towns or named communities that were subjected to grass or shrubland fires, or included rural subdivisions or mobile home or RV parks — just forest fires, and an arbitrary division of at least 30 structures burned; or 50% of a community’s structures if it had less than 60 buildings. We were pretty shocked at how recent most of the fires were, and also that they were almost entirely related to USFS lands, so we made 1905 the logical starting point. All indications are that the September 2020 Fires were at least as destructive, if not as deadly, as the historic 1871 and 1910 Fires.
Table 1 is a listing of the burned communities arranged by state and county. We fully expect these numbers to increase with midwest and south histories, as well as the 1963 Pine Barren Fires in New Jersey. The “x-” States are those showing towns that were burned and never rebuilt — the 1910 Railroad towns are most of these. The “?” Towns are those that may have escaped damage or weren’t related to a forest fire and may need to be removed. Any help with blanks, corrections, or additions appreciated!
We now know which counties to contact for elected officials, media, and long-time businesses and residents. The purpose would be for further study and public outreach for this unrecognized emergency of deadly town fires directly related to USFS forest and wildfire management policies.
The reason these numbers should be recognized as a national emergency is because of the massive increase in these events in the past 10 years, as shown on Table 2. From 1905-1995 — 90 years — we only have forest fires burning into towns in five counties (although this number is likely to grow with more research); from 1995 to 2005, towns burned in four more counties; from 2005-2015, four more counties; and from 2015-2024 — only 9 years — forest fires in 20 counties had burned at least 46 towns! Mostly in California and Oregon.
The folks that survived these fires and have returned to rebuild their homes and towns are the experts on these events. Research funding is being sought to interview as many key people as possible from these communities with five basic questions: 1) How did the fire start and how could it have been prevented; 2) Why did you decide to return: 3) What organizations, agencies, neighbors, or others were most helpful and/or most troublesome in rebuilding; 4) Did you make the right decision, or not; and 5) What can be done in the way of forest management and community protection to avoid a reoccurrence?
Hurricane Helene is getting major political and media attention at this time for obvious reasons and immediate needs, but many of these communities — think Paradise or the Labor Day Fires — have been equally as devastated and in need of assistance. Hopefully the mayors and elected county officials in these communities are working directly with USFS officials and national representatives regarding these predictable and mostly preventable tragedies.
The following editorial was published on Wednesday, in the weekly Skamania County Pioneer — which has been in business since 1893 and is the principal newspaper for Stevenson, Washington. That is where the final FAC meeting will be held next week, at Snoqualamie Lodge, and this will be in the latest news: https://www.loc.gov/item/sn88085218/
And here is the text to the editorial:
On September 25-28, the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) “federal advisory committee” (FAC) will hold its final meetings at Skamania Lodge in Stevenson in its continuing effort to help repair the failing plan.
The official rationale for the committee’s formation was: “After nearly 30 years, the Northwest Forest Plan needs to be updated to accommodate changed ecological and social conditions.”
The fact is, since its inception in 1994, the NWFP has resulted in widespread catastrophic wildfires, rural unemployment, unhealthy smoke pollution, failed businesses, and millions of dead wildlife.
Directly related environmental lawsuits have only exacerbated these problems at great additional expense to taxpayers, and all was clearly predicted and could have mostly been avoided.
The FAC was formed in 2023 with 20 members asked tofocus on five key areas of the plan: wildfire resilience, climate change adaptation, tribal inclusion, sustainable communities, and “conservation of old growth ecosystems.”
During their previous June 25-27 meetings in Olympia, they developed 192 Recommendations addressing these five concerns. Unfortunately, these greatly needed, considered, and well-intentioned suggestions have little likelihood of being adopted.
What went wrong and how to fix?
The NWFP had its beginning in 1993. President Bill Clinton held an all-day public meeting in Portland to address the ongoing “timber wars” between environmental activists and the forest industry.
The conflict involved commercial sales of old-growth trees on public lands in the Douglas Fir Region. A principal claim was spotted owls — recently listed as an “endangered species” — required old-growth trees to survive. Logging old-growth should therefore be illegal.
Clinton’s meeting resulted in the formation of FEMAT, or Forest Ecosystem Management Team: a small group of like-minded scientists from OSU and UW: forest ecologists, wildlife biologists, GIS techs, and economists. But no foresters, Native Americans, 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.”
Clinton’s “five principles” can be compared to FAC’s “five keys”:
His first principle was “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.
As a locally recognized forest historian and scientist, I was hired to analyze Clinton’s Plan, and my reasoned predictions soon made the cover of a national magazine. And were then forgotten.
My predictions of catastrophic wildfires and widespread rural unemployment mirrored those of other scientists, experienced foresters, and knowledgeable residents. And, unlike FEMAT’s promise of vast stands of old-growth, growing populations of rare species, and good-paying jobs in a diverse economy, our projections were accurate.
The tested and proven USFS foundation of 1897 Organic Act, 1935 10:00 A.M. Policy, and Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 had created safe, beautiful forests, thriving wildlife, widespread meaningful employment, new schools, parks, and homes — and only a single western Oregon wildfire greater than 10,000 acres from 1952 until 1987.
If the FAC can somehow return the NWFP to the proven roots and policies of successful USFS management prior to 1987, then there can again be hope for our forests in rural Pacific Northwest. Otherwise, poor schools, poor jobs, dying communities, wildfires, and deadly smoke remain certain.
Here is the text to the editorial, which was condensed from the section on Carbon Credits in my peer review of the current Elliott State Forest draft forest management plan, submitted on August 4:
Oregon State has valid reasons for opposing Elliott forest carbon-crediting scheme
Oregon State University and the Department of State Lands agreed in February 2019 to produce a research and management plan for the Elliott State Forest by the end of that year. The proposed plan was supposed to focus on “key conservation values,” with the second “key value” being “a carbon sequestration program.”
Nearly five years later, in November 2023, OSU President Jayathi Murthy told the department that the university would be terminating its agreements regarding research and management of the Elliott. OSU said the primary reason for this decision was the university’s “significant concerns” regarding the department’s “intent” to move forward with a scheme by the department to use the forest to store carbon and then sell credits instead of actively managing for jobs and income.
Murthy’s decision to terminate the agreement came just over a year after an August 2022 email from OSU’s Forestry Dean Thomas DeLuca to the department and the State Land Board listed several reasons why OSU opposed a carbon-crediting scheme. DeLuca said the credits would pose a “serious financial risk,” would increase the cost of managing the forest and that it would be difficult over the long term to meet the sales requirements.
Three days before Murthy’s decision to pull out of the agreement, the Department of State Lands circulated a confidential report that stated the Elliott might not qualify for the carbon market – and even if it did, credits would likely generate less than $1 million per year and 20% of that amount would go to administering the program.
Nevertheless, the department recently announced plans to continue their efforts to sell carbon credits rather than logs from the Elliott.
The Elliott grows about 70 million board feet of timber a year and has a well-documented history of catastrophic wildfires, windstorms, floods and landslides. Less than 1% of the forest is old growth, more than 40,000 acres are in industrial plantations and the remainder is made up of mature trees grown following major wildfires in 1868 and 1879.
From 1960 until 1990, the Elliott sold 50 million board feet of timber a year, producing hundreds of millions of dollars for Oregon schools and more than 400 rural taxpaying jobs. There also were no wildfires during that time. Since the Department of State Lands took over management in 2017, the forest has lost more than a million dollars a year and only funded two road maintenance jobs, with an ever-increasing likelihood of catastrophic wildfires due to the increasing amount of unmanaged fuels growing every year.
An example of the ephemeral nature of carbon sequestration related to the sale of carbon credits is shown by the active Shelly Fire in northern California, which has burned more than 15,500 acres. A July 19 report about the fire included a map that outlined 11,000 acres of burned forest owned by Ecotrust Forest Management in Portland that had been used to sell carbon credits.
So, what happens next? Will money be returned to investors? Will the dead trees be salvaged or left in place to rot or burn again?
These are key questions that need to be considered and that the Department of State Lands hasn’t answered, according to Oregon State University.
The plan to sell carbon credits from the Elliott trees has already resulted in a significant amount of time and cost to Oregon taxpayers. Yet, there are no indications that carbon markets are stable, and even if credits could be sold, their value would be very low in comparison to traditional timber sales. The Elliott was created to help fund schools through timber sales and as a working forest. For two generations, it has done both and could continue to do so but not by selling carbon credits.