An essay by Rich Fairbanks in an Ashland, OR, news outlet.

“Here is a maddening irony: We now have solid science and decades of hard-won experience managing western wildfires, yet the issue of fire policy is becoming as polarized as the spotted-owl timber wars of the 1980s and ‘90s. Ideology is crowding out evidence at precisely the moment when getting this right matters most. So, let’s try something radical — a fact-based look at what peer-reviewed research actually tells us about controlling wildfire.”

The Property and Environment Research Center has a new report out.

Press release:

PERC’s latest report, Beyond Wildfire Suppression: The Economic Case for Fuel Treatments on National Forests, presents the most comprehensive real-world analysis to date of how fuel treatments—such as prescribed burns and mechanical thinning—affect wildfire outcomes. Drawing on newly compiled, high-resolution data, the report demonstrates that these treatments not only improve forest health but also deliver significant economic returns.

The report presents results from academic research by Frederik Strabo, PERC and UC Davis postdoctoral scholar, and Matthew Reimer, UC Davis associate professor of agricultural and resource economics. Their work has been accepted for publication in Science, one of the world’s leading peer-reviewed journals, underscoring the rigor and credibility of the findings.

“Wildfire policy has long emphasized suppression, but our research shows that complementing it with greater investment in prevention can deliver substantial public benefits,” said Strabo. “Targeted fuel treatments reduce damages, lower firefighting costs, protect communities, and restore healthier, more resilient forests.”

New Data Make the Economic Case for Prevention

For decades, policymakers and land managers have lacked clear, large-scale evidence on whether fuel treatments pay off. This report fills that gap.

Using detailed data on wildfire behavior, treatment locations, suppression efforts, and economic damages, the analysis finds:

• Strong returns on investment: In the Pacific Northwest, every $1 spent on fuel treatments yields between $5 and $6 in reduced federal firefighting costs.
• Reduced economic damages: Across the western United States, each $1 invested in fuel treatments in national forests generates an average of $3.73 in avoided damages from smoke exposure and property loss.
• Billions in avoided losses: Fuel treatments prevented an estimated $2.8 billion in wildfire-related damages between 2017 and 2023.

The findings provide the first large-scale empirical evidence—based on observed wildfire outcomes rather than simulations—that proactive forest management delivers measurable economic benefits.

Healthier Forests, Lower-Risk Fires

Beyond cost savings, fuel treatments meaningfully improve forest conditions and reduce fire severity. Areas that received treatments experienced 36 percent less burned area and 26 percent lower rates of high-severity fire, helping maintain more resilient, fire-adapted ecosystems.

By reducing excess fuel loads built up over decades of fire suppression, treatments restore more natural fire regimes and lower the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

From Suppression to Stewardship

The federal government spends billions each year fighting wildfires, yet growing evidence shows that prevention is more effective—and more economical—than relying on suppression alone.

By demonstrating that fuel treatments can both reduce wildfire damages and free up resources for broader forest restoration, the report makes a strong case for rebalancing wildfire policy toward proactive stewardship.

Nick Smith has a link in today’s HFHC email to a new paper, “Deforestation and reforestation in a world hotspot of fire-driven forest loss: trends in California conifer forests 1991–2023,” Hugh D. Safford and Joseph A. E. Stewart, Front. For. Glob. Change, 09 April 2026. No surprise here, to those of us who have watched forests in the west burn. FWIW, Harold Weaver foresaw this 83+ years ago. See “Fire As An Ecological and Silvicultural Factor in the Ponderosa Pine Region of the Pacific Slope,” Journal of Forestry, 1943, available free from the Society of American Foresters.

Weaver:  “It is the writer’s opinion that … unless the stagnating stands of reproduction can be thinned and the terrific destruction by pine beetles can be checked the success of sustained-yield forest management in the ponderosa-pine region is seriously threatened.”

Andy Kerr reviews a book by Richard L. Hutto, A Beautifully Burned Forest: Learning to Celebrate Severe Forest Fire.

High Country News essay. First paragraph:

“I first read Denis Johnson’s novella Train Dreams outside, leaning against a tree. It was 2019, and my Forest Service trail crew was camped out in a quiet corner of Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness, clearing the Jack Creek trail through a two-year-old burn. In the evenings, after I’d rinsed the grime off in a shallow creek, I savored Johnson’s descriptions of the rough and lonely life of his protagonist, Robert Grainier, a logging-crew laborer in Washington’s forests a hundred years ago.”

The proposed project includes Variable Density Thinning, which was at issue in a court decision of a 2020 project on the Mt. Hood National Forest, the Crystal Clear Restoration Project, which we have discussed before, such as here. A significant portion of the Crystal Clear project area burned not long after the 9th Circuit’s decision, in the 2020 White River fire. I’ve heard anecdotal info on the specific areas of the Crystal Clear project that burned, and at what intensity/severity, but haven’t seen documentation. Anyone have access to such info?

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Dear friends and neighbors of the Willamette National Forest,

The McKenzie River Ranger District on the Willamette National Forest, in collaboration with the Oregon Department of Forestry using the Good Neighbor Authority (GNA), is beginning the planning process for the Tie Project. The project area encompasses 36,982 acres and is located on the McKenzie River District of the Willamette National Forest, about 5 miles east of McKenzie Bridge in Linn and Lane Counties (see attached vicinity map). The project website is located at:  https://www.fs.usda.gov/r06/willamette/projects/68829.

The purpose and need for this project includes, (1) Providing a sustainable timber supply to support local economies, (2) Reducing wildfire risk through strategic thinning and shaded fuel breaks, (3) Improving forest health and resilience by enhancing forest structure, species diversity, and stand density, and (4) Maintaining and improving road systems for management, recreation, and wildfire response.

To meet the purpose and need, the proposed action would treat up to 7,898 acres (6,108 acres of variable density thinning, including 772 acres of roadside shaded fuel breaks overlapping with thinning units; and 1,790 acres of roadside shaded fuel breaks) within the McKenzie River Ranger District through:

• Variable Density Thinning: This treatment meets objectives by improving wildlife and plant habitats, increasing structural and compositional diversity, boosting resilience to insects, disease, or other stressors, and enhancing aesthetic values in stands that are currently lacking spatial variability. The “skips and gaps” method of variable density thinning is flexible, allowing for the preservation of unique habitat features leading to greater landscape diversity. Areas that are not thinned (“skips”) will protect existing features by excluding logging activity. “Gaps” are created to closely approximate natural disturbance regimes, like landslides and fires, through harvest of small patches of trees. Gaps create diversity and increase growth and crown lengths of neighboring trees. Furthermore, gaps may be created in locations that favor underrepresented tree species that are either already present or may be planted after treatment to increase landscape diversity. Areas that are not within skips or gaps, are thinned to encourage growth and development of the overstory trees and understory plants.

• Roadside Shaded Fuel Breaks: This treatment creates fuel breaks along key roads and corridors to provide firefighters with opportunities to improve their effectiveness and safety, prevent further wildfire spread, and protect resource values at risk from wildfire. A shaded fuel break selectively removes vegetation in the treatment area to a specified spacing that allows safe firefighting operations while maintaining an overstory. This treatment favors the growth of large native species by removing the understory, ladder fuels (fuels that enable a wildfire to climb to an overstory tree or canopy), and invasive species to improve fire suppression capabilities and reduce risk to firefighters. Shaded fuel breaks favorably modify wildfire behavior while providing the foundation for a healthy and resilient forest.

• Road System Improvements: These improvements will provide maintenance of existing roads for safe access and will build temporary roads to support harvest operations. Temporary roads will be decommissioned after use to reduce environmental impacts.

An Environmental Assessment will be prepared in accordance with the Interim final rule issued on July 3. 2025 (Federal Register: National Environmental Policy Act) to guide planning, inform decision-making, and ensure transparency with the public. The assessment will evaluate potential environmental, social, and cultural impacts of the proposed actions, providing a solid foundation for determining how the project should proceed. By taking a focused approach to this analysis, we can concentrate on the most critical issues, streamline the planning process, and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of project development.

A community meeting will be held to provide information and gather feedback about the project:

• Date: December 4, 2025
• Time: 6- 8pm
• Location: McKenzie Fire and Rescue Training Center 42870 McKenzie Highway Leaburg, OR 97489

Your input is a vital part of our planning process. It helps us consider alternative approaches to achieving the project’s purpose and need, as well as determine the scope of our Environmental Analysis. When submitting comments, please focus on the potential effects of specific proposed project activities. We are interested in your thoughts on how the project may impact natural, cultural, and community resources and which issues should be prioritized in our analysis.

Comments received by December 26th, 2025, will be most helpful as we finalize the design of the project and evaluate its potential effects. Comments should be site-specific and directly related to the proposed activities and project area. If you reference supporting materials, please include the source and explain its relevance to the project.

Comments may be submitted through the project website, by mail, or in person during the community meeting. Comments received, including the names and addresses of those who comment, will be considered part of the public record for this project and will be available for public review.

• Scoping comments can be submitted electronically through: https://cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public//CommentInput?Project=68829
• Mailed to McKenzie River Ranger District, Attn: Jessica Eves, 57600 McKenzie Highway McKenzie Bridge, OR 97413

A field trip may be scheduled when analysis and project design are further developed prior to the close of the comment period on a draft Environmental Assessment. If you are interested in attending a potential future field trip to view sites within the proposed project area, please express interest in your scoping comment or by contacting the project lead below.

You will have an additional opportunity to comment when the draft Environmental Assessment is prepared. A decision regarding this project is expected to be made in the Fall of 2026 with implementation following shortly afterwards.

For more information, please contact Jessica Eves, NEPA Planner at [email protected].

Thank you for your interest in the management of the McKenzie Ranger District of the Willamette National Forest.

From High Country News, an excerpt:

Decades of public-lands planning, overturned in a day

Press release from April 7….

A change of pace — not federal forest planning, but interesting: An article in Switchboard Magazine by Nathan Rizzuti offers an inside look at Louisiana’s oddest odd job: hunting for long-submerged cypress trees. “Cypress – taxodium distichum – goes by many names: bald cypress, red cypress, swamp cypress, gulf cypress. But if you hack away at a living cypress tree on state property, the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry can, and will, serve you up to a 5-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $5,000. … Hamilton and Jack go for the wood that’s been dead a long time – sinker cypress, also commonly called deadhead logs. Sinker cypress is a term for mature cypress logs that were cut or felled anywhere between one hundred to five hundred years ago. A handful of factors determine a log’s value, but a large, mature stick can fetch a price upwards of $20,000,” he wrote.

From The Bulwark, a Substack blog….

Whiny, Entitled Federal Workers Demand Mold-Free Cubicles, Potable Water

The Trump administration’s government-wide policy proclamation of “remote work is over, y’all figure it out” has heaped an endless stream of indignities on the D.C.-based federal workforce. The latest of these: Remote-work employees returning to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s mammoth South Building this month were faced with disgusting working conditions, including mold in previously empty offices, undrinkable water in drinking fountains, roaches in the bathrooms, and notices about an ongoing “asbestos project” posted in shared spaces.

A union representing some of these employees circulated a letter documenting many of these concerns this week, saying they were requesting the agency provide “clear and enforceable health and safety protocols,” “requests for enhanced cleaning protocols,” and “confirmation that assigned workspaces are safe before occupancy.”

One USDA employee now working out of the South Building told The Bulwark that he’d spent “about two hours on my second day scrubbing moldy surfaces with my own cleaning supplies from home.” He also passed along a few pictures, which I should probably apologize for including in a morning newsletter: If you’re squeamish or eating, maybe skip on by these!

Employees also report that some are skittish about speaking out about their conditions—reasoning that the new administration’s “solution” to such a problem would simply be to place the building up for sale and lay them all off.

The White House declined to comment, directing questions from The Bulwark to the Department of Agriculture. The Department of Agriculture also declined to comment.