Steve Wilent

Steve Wilent is a forester, journalist, and educator. All of the opinions he expresses on Smokey Wire are his, not necessarily those of anyone else. Steve previously served as Editor, The Forestry Source, the newspaper of The Society of American Foresters (SAF, www.eforester.org). He's been a member of the SAF since 1982. He also teaches forestry at Mt. Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon.

Cost-Effectiveness Of Large-Scale Fuel Reduction for Wildfire Mitigation in California

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Mike Archer has this in his Wildfire News of the Day today (thanks, Mike!):

United States

(1) A new report from The Breakthrough Institute critically assesses whether the economic benefits derived from fuel reduction treatments are sufficient to justify their costs by providing an empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of fuel reduction treatments using a novel methodology that quantifies the relationship between fire intensity and fuel loads.
Cost-Effectiveness Of Large-Scale Fuel Reduction for Wildfire Mitigation in California https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/cost-effectiveness-of-large-scale-fuel-reduction-for-wildfire-mitigation-in-california

From the Exec. Summary:

At a fuel reduction rate of 3.9 million acres per year, and using our conservative central economic
input parameters, the annual cost of fuel reduction would be $10.5 billion, but it would confer a
benefit of $22.2 billion annually for a benefit-to-cost ratio of 2.1-to-1 and a net benefit of $11.6 billion
annually (Figure ES-1). The cost of each year of delay in scaling up fuel treatment to 3.9 million acres
per year would be $5.8 billion.

 

Thinning, Rx Fire, and Owls

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This study looks at Mexican spotted owls, a subspecies of the northern spotted owl.

Open access paper from Fire Ecology:

Frequent burning and limited stand-replacing fire supports Mexican spotted owl pair occupancy

Abstract

Changing fire regimes have the potential to threaten wildlife populations and communities. Understanding species’ responses to novel fire regimes is critical to formulating effective management and conservation strategies in an era of rapid change. Here, we examined the empirical effects of recent and historical wildfire activity on Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida) populations in the southwestern United States. Using region-wide, standardized detection/non-detection data of Mexican spotted owl breeding pairs collected from 2015 to 2022, we found (i) higher rates of pair occupancy at sites that experienced more frequent fires in the three decades prior to the initiation of our study, and (ii) lower rates of local persistence at sites that experienced more extensive high-severity fire during the study. Historical fire regimes throughout much of our study area were characterized by high fire frequencies and limited high-severity components, indicating that Mexican spotted owls responded to wildfire in a manner consistent with their evolutionary environment. Management activities such as prescribed burning and mechanical thinning that aim to reduce stand-replacing fire risk and re-introduce the potential for frequent-fire regimes will likely benefit Mexican spotted owl conservation objectives, as well as promote more resilient forest landscapes.

$350M in federal land sales likely to benefit Nevada public lands and wildlife

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From High Country News….

Excerpt:

Since the passage of the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act (SNPLMA) in 1998, more than $4 billion in revenue generated from Las Vegas area land sales has been directed to conservation, park improvement and wildfire prevention projects across Nevada and the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Now, another $348 million in federal dollars is set to be allocated for additional projects, and the federal government is seeking input on where that money should go.

Dozens of projects have been proposed statewide, from those that would help protect endangered Mojave Desert tortoises in rural Southern Nevada to those that would expand city parks in Northern Nevada, all funded by proceeds from SNPLMA sales. 

Criminal case dismissed against burn boss in Oregon

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News brief from Oregon Public Broadcasting.

In October 2022, Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley arrested Ricky Snodgrass, a U.S. Forest Service employee who was leading a prescribed burn that jumped to private land and burned roughly 20 acres. In February of this year, a grand jury indicted Snodgrass on a misdemeanor count of reckless burning.

His case was then moved to federal court, where it was dismissed last week. The case was a particularly striking example of longstanding tensions between federal agencies and local communities in rural Oregon.

NW Forest Plan Revision FAC Meeting, June 25-27

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FYI…

 

The Northwest Forest Plan Amendment Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) will meet on June 25-27, 2024, at Courtyard Marriott Conference Room, 2301 Henderson Park Lane SE, Olympia, Washington. 

 

The FAC meeting will be livestreamed at Northwest Forest Plan Federal Advisory Committee Meeting (hd1live.com) . The meeting will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.  Further details regarding the upcoming meeting, including how the public can provide information to the committee is posted on the Forest Service’s regional website at: https://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/r6/nwfpfac.  The Federal Register meeting announcement can be found here: Federal Register: Northwest Forest Plan Area Advisory Committee.

 

FAC meetings are open for the public to observe in-person or via live stream.  Additionally, written and oral comments will be accepted, with oral comments taken during a designated portion of the meeting. 

 

Anyone wishing to provide in-person oral comments must pre-register by 11:59 p.m. PST on June 14, 2024. Written public comments will be accepted through 11:59 p.m. PST on June 14, 2024. Comments submitted after this date will be provided by the Forest Service to the Committee, but the Committee may not have adequate time to consider those comments prior to the meeting.

 

Meeting Purpose

This will be the Federal Advisory Committee’s fifth meeting for members to provide and vote on their recommendations for an amendment to the Northwest Forest Plan.

 

What is the Federal Advisory Committee’s role?

The FAC was established by the Secretary of Agriculture as part of ongoing efforts to amend the Northwest Forest Plan. The purpose of the FAC is to bring together diverse perspectives representing the experiences of communities, experts, Tribes, and other interested parties across the Northwest Forest Plan landscape to inform ways that forest management can effectively conserve key resources while considering social, ecological, and economic conditions and needs.

 

How can I get involved and learn more?  

The Federal Advisory Committee does not replace the public involvement process or the public’s opportunity to engage directly with the Forest Service regarding Northwest Forest Plan amendment efforts during the planning process.  To learn more about the Northwest Forest Plan and future engagement opportunities please visit the Northwest Forest Plan website.

 

The Northwest Forest Plan covers 24.5 million acres of federally managed lands in northwestern California, western Oregon, and Washington. It was established in 1994 to address threats to threatened and endangered species while also contributing to social and economic sustainability in the region. After nearly 30 years, the Northwest Forest Plan needs to be updated to accommodate changed ecological and social conditions.  

 

For future Northwest Forest Plan Amendment updates please sign-up using USDA Forest Service (govdelivery.com).

 

Additional Background: The Forest Service is required by law to develop plans that guide the long-term management of public lands. The Forest Service will amend the Northwest Forest Plan in accordance with the 2012 Planning Rule, using public input and other public, private, and nonprofit organizations and governments. Land management plans establish priorities and provide strategic direction for how the plan area is to be managed.   

 

Amendments to this plan will be informed by findings in the Bioregional Assessment and Science Synthesis as well as input from the Federal Advisory Committee and a range of other interested organizations and individuals. This effort builds on the agency’s Northwest Forest Plan work, including information gathers via monitoring, listening sessions and bioregional Assessment. 

New Book: Burn Scars

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This is due to be available in September from OSU Press. It’s by Char Miller. Very timely!

Burn Scars

A Documentary History of Fire Suppression, from Colonial Origins to the Resurgence of Cultural Burning

The first documentary history of wildfire management in the United States, Burn Scars probes the long efforts to suppress fire, beginning with the Spanish invasion of California in the eighteenth century and continuing through the US Forest Service’s relentless nationwide campaign in the twentieth century. The Forest Service argued that suppression was critical for good forest management, especially but not exclusively in the American West. In recent years, suppression has come under increasing scrutiny as a contributing factor to our current era of megafires.

In Burn Scars, historian Char Miller assembles a collection of primary sources focused on debates over “light burning” (as prescribed or controlled burning was called). These historic documents show that not only was fire suppression controversial, but that it was also driven by explicitly racist and colonial beliefs. Yet the suppression paradigm contained within it the seeds of its destruction: Indigenous people continued to use fire as did non-Indigenous land managers. By the 1920s, scientific evidence was beginning to reveal that fire was essential for regenerating grasslands and forests; by the 1930s even the Forest Service was testing fire’s ecological benefits.

Burn Scars focuses on the burning debates of the early twentieth century, but Miller also provides evidence of a powerful counternarrative emerging from southern non-Indigenous foresters who used fire to revive longleaf pine ecosystems. The volume begins and ends with contributions from Indigenous practitioners discussing the long history and resurgent practice of cultural burning as part of traditional stewardship.

About the authorChar Miller is W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College. He has written and edited numberous books, including Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, Fluid Arguments: Water in the American West, and Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas.

Plans for an Ailing Forest Include Logging. Environmentalists Object.

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In the New York Times today:

Plans for an Ailing Forest Include Logging. Environmentalists Object.

Officials in Oregon say they need to cut trees, including some healthy ones. The reaction shows how complex land management has become as forest health declines.

Excerpts:

Across a patch of the Pacific Northwest, one of North America’s most important tree species is dying at an alarming rate. This spring, as in the past several years, the needles on Douglas firs are yellowing, turning red and then dropping to the ground in forests across southwestern Oregon.

Experts blame a combination of factors, including insect attacks, drought and increased temperatures caused by climate change. Decades of fire suppression have exacerbated problems by disrupting the natural balance of ecosystems.

“The droughts and heat and climate change are killing trees widely, and there’s no clear way to put that genie back in the bottle,” said Rob Jackson, an ecologist at the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University who is researching the ways climate change affects forests and grasslands. “We are priming our forests to die.”

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Dominick DellaSala, the chief scientist at Wild Heritage, a forest protection advocacy organization, has visited the forests with Mr. Ruediger to witness the Douglas fir die-off and also said he remained suspicious about the agency’s motivation. “What the agencies will do, they’ll cherry pick the science to fit the desired outcome,” he said.

“You’ve got to tackle climate change, because that’s a lot of what’s driving this,” Dr. DellaSala added. “And you’ve got to reduce the pressures on forests through these kinds of logging events.”

“Green Glacier” Encroaches on Prairies

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This isn’t a USFS planning topic, but interesting nonetheless. According to an NPR story yesterday and on other dates, a “blanket of shrublands and dense juniper [eastern red cedar] woods gobbling up grassland leads to wildfires with towering flames that dwarf those generated in prairie fires.” In part, this is due to eliminating Indigenous fire-based land management.

Trees And Shrubs Are Burying Prairies Of The Great Plains

Could ‘Science Courts’ Help Build Public Trust?

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This essay in Undark describes a “a citizens’ jury” designed “to ask whether the U.K. government should allow scientists to edit the DNA of human embryos in order to treat serious genetic conditions. Convening a jury was a non-traditional approach to involving the public in decision-making on a complicated scientific topic that could affect public policy.” Such a “science court” might help the public understand forest health/resilience treatments and could perhaps increase the forestry community’s social license to actively manage national forests.