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MEDFORD, OREGON—Today, conservation organizations WildEarth Guardians and Oregon Wild filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Forest Service’s misuse of an agency regulation to evade its obligation to analyze and disclose the environmental impacts of three projects on the Fremont-Winema National Forest in southcentral Oregon. The organizations allege the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it failed to analyze the impacts of commercial thinning across thousands of acres of national forest as part of the South Warner, Bear Wallow, and Baby Bear logging projects. The organizations are represented by Crag Law Center.

To duck its obligation to analyze the impacts of the projects’ extensive commercial logging, the Forest Service relied on a categorical exclusion—an agency regulation exempting certain projects from the usual NEPA public disclosure and appeal requirements. CEs are reserved for small, low-impact, routine activities like replacing a culvert or rebuilding a section of trail. Here, the Forest Service relied on CE-6, a categorical exclusion for “timber stand and wildlife habitat improvement” activities, such as thinning or brush control to improve growth or to reduce fire hazard, and prescribed burning. Though the agency adopted CE-6 in 1992, until 2018 it had never used the categorical exclusion to bypass environmental analyses for projects that included commercial logging.

“The Forest Service is misleading the public as to what these projects entail. Commercial thinning is logging—trees with marketable value are cut and removed from the forest to be sold on the market—which requires heavy equipment and roads that can disturb soils, cause erosion into streams, destroy or degrade habitat, and release stored carbon,” said Chris Krupp of WildEarth Guardians. “Over the past few years the Forest Service has taken to re-labeling logging projects as timber stand or habitat improvement projects with a commercial thinning component, in order to avoid having to analyze, and inform the public about, the impacts of public lands logging that the law requires.”

The three projects being challenged indicate the agency’s intention to increasingly rely on CE-6, regardless of the scale and scope of commercial thinning employed. The South Warner project authorizes 16,000 acres of commercial thinning (25 square miles), Bear Wallow 10,000 acres (15+ square miles), and Baby Bear 3,000 acres (4+ square miles).

”Logging our National Forests has complex effects on the environment, and should be carefully planned. For 50 years Congress has required federal agencies to disclose environmental impacts and involve the public in decision-making that affects the environment. The Forest Service cannot unilaterally carve out a giant loophole to avoid this important public process.” said Doug Heiken of Oregon Wild.

The lawsuit further alleges the Forest Service has never determined that commercial thinning—much less commercial thinning of the scale and scope authorized by the three projects here—does not cause significant environmental impacts. Such a determination is necessary if projects that include commercial thinning are to be categorically excluded from NEPA’s mandate to disclose the environmental impacts of an agency proposal through either an assessment or more comprehensive impact statement.

“Categorical exclusions basically represent a bargain between the Forest Service and the public,” said Oliver Stiefel of Crag Law Center. “Before adopting a new CE, the Forest Service must prove that the environmental impacts of a set of activities will be insignificant. In exchange, when the Forest Service later proposes a project that fits within the CE, it may dispense with the detailed analysis and disclosure of environmental impacts otherwise required. The Forest Service here hasn’t lived up to its end of the bargain—relying on a CE for 29,000 acres of logging is unprecedented.”

A copy of the complaint is available here: https://pdf.wildearthguardians.org/support_docs/CE6-Oregon-Complaint.pdf

Excerpts from “Why have all the trees been dying?” in a Lake Tahoe area paper [emphasis added]. I think this mortality will spread north in to the Cascades in Oregon and Washington.

Jonathan Cook-Fisher, District Ranger for the Tahoe National Forest in Truckee said, “It is happening from the west shore to the north. The fir trees are the first to go. There are some beetles, but the primary driver appears to be overstocked forest stands with drought conditions.”

…

Overstocked forests didn’t just happen in the last few years. It has been a growing (sorry couldn’t resist) problem for the past 100 years. Sierra Nevada forests (and forests throughout the west) have adapted to regular fires that were spurred by lightning storms. Trees adapted by growing rapidly and close together in an attempt to “out-grow” the fires. The lightning caused fires stayed low to the ground, burned out the brush and those swiftly growing young firs before the stands could get too thick, leaving a forest of primarily mature, bigger trees spread out around the forest. Fewer, large trees were better able to fend off pests and drought. 

…

In a scientific study in the Journal of Ecological Applications [2021] on the impact of tree mortality on wildfire severity entitled “Recent bark beetle outbreaks influence wildfire severity in mixed-confer forests of the Sierra Nevada,” Rebecca Wayman and Hugh Safford found: 

“Our analyses identified prefire tree mortality as influential on all measures of wildfire severity… All measures of fire severity increased as prefire mortality increased…Managers of historically frequent-fire forests will benefit from utilizing this information when prioritizing fuels reduction treatments in areas of recent tree mortality, as it is the first empirical study to document a relationship between prefire mortality and subsequent wildfire severity in these systems.”

Report: Federal logging projects put 10 climate-saving forests on chopping block

Trees in Kootenai National Forest included on list of 10 threatened forests that help fight climate change

MISSOULA, MONTANA—Federal agencies are targeting mature and old-growth forests for logging despite these trees’ extraordinary ability to curb climate change and President Biden’s directive to preserve them, according to a new report spotlighting the 10 worst logging projects in federal forests across the country.

In the report released today, Worth More Standing, the Climate Forests coalition details federal logging proposals targeting nearly a quarter of a million acres of old-growth and mature forests overseen by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. The report outlines “a pervasive pattern of federal forest mismanagement that routinely sidesteps science to turn carbon-storing giants into lumber” and calls on the Biden administration to pass a permanent rule to protect these big old trees.

“The best way to protect these carbon-storing giants is to let them grow, but our federal agencies keep turning them into lumber,” said Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Biden administration can help curb climate change by permanently protecting mature and old growth trees. It takes centuries to make up for the carbon lost when these trees are chopped down and we don’t have that kind of time.”

The threatened forests are in Montana, North Carolina, Vermont, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Wyoming, Arizona, California, and Oregon.

In northwest Montana, the U.S. Forest Service’s Black Ram project will allow nearly 4,000 acres of the Kootenai National Forest to be commercially logged, including clearcutting more than 1,700 acres and logging hundreds of acres of centuries-old trees. These rare, old forests are champions of carbon storage, which reduces harms from climate change. Conservation groups sued to challenge the logging and road building project on June 30, 2022.

“The U.S. Forest Service is racing to eradicate ancient primary forests on our public lands in direct opposition to President Biden’s proclamation to protect old and mature forests as an effective means of battling climate change” said Rick Bass, chair of the Yaak Valley Forest Council. “Primary old forests in the proposed Black Ram project on the Kootenai National Forest can store up to 1,900 metric tons of biomass per hectare. The Forest Service is committing climate treason in broad daylight, racing to cut the last old forests in the backcountry—logging in the wet swamps, the one place fire doesn’t go. It’s climate madness disguised as greed.”

“This report demonstrates that logging remains a critical threat to mature and old-growth forests,” said Adam Rissien, ReWilding Manager with WildEarth Guardians. “The urgent need for meaningful protections could not be more evident and until then we will continue to challenge the Forest Service when the agency seeks to decimate habitat important for imperiled species such as grizzly bears and Canada lynx.”

Mature and old-growth forests hold enormous amounts of carbon. Preserving old-growth and mature forests is a meaningful, cost-effective measure the Biden administration can take immediately to mitigate climate change. Biden issued an Earth Day executive order directing an inventory of old forests and policies to protect them.

“Without a federal rule in place to restrict logging of these critical forest tracts, these mature and old-growth trees could be lost, along with the opportunity to make significant progress toward addressing climate change,” said Blaine Miller-McFeeley, Senior Legislative Representative at Earthjustice.

Also today, more than 125 groups sent a letter to the U.S. Agriculture and Interior departments requesting an immediate start to a rulemaking process to ensure permanent protections for mature and old-growth trees and forests across federal lands, while allowing for necessary measures to reduce wildfire risk. Large, older trees are more resistant to wildfires and studies show logging them doesn’t reduce the risk of climate change-driven fires.

“This report highlights what we have—but also what we stand to lose,” said Alex Craven, senior campaign representative at the Sierra Club. “Our old and mature growths are a natural climate solution, and we must protect these trees if we wish to tackle the intersecting climate and biodiversity crises.”

Scientists have pointed to forest preservation as one of the most effective ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere. U.S. federal forests sequester 35 million metric tons of carbon annually, a number that could rise steadily with new conservation measures.

Protecting older forests also safeguards clean water, clean air, wildlife habitat, biodiversity and recreational opportunities.

The full report is available here: https://www.climate-forests.org/worth-more-standing

The fire has grown to 2,340 acres as of this morning, July 11, according to the NPS via Inciweb. “Fuels Involved: Timber and Brush – Mostly high load conifer litter (TL5) with heavy dead and down component as well as substantial standing dead.”

“The fire is burning in difficult terrain with continuous heavy fuels in and around the fire.  Significant tree mortality from 2013 – 2015 has left dead standing and dead fallen fuels.  This also presents significant safety hazards to firefighters.  Fire scars from past fires located approximately one to three miles from the current fire perimeter will assist firefighters in slowing the growth of the fire.  Firefighters will continue going direct when safe and will scout and prepare indirect lines.

“The fire was active overnight. Today is expected to be hotter and drier than yesterday, with similar fire behavior. The Park Service and Firefighters are proactively protecting the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. While structure wrap is not being used on the sequoias themselves, additional methods are being used including the removal of heavy and fine fuels around the trees and deploying ground-based sprinkler systems to increase humidity near the trees. Fortunately, the Mariposa Grove has a long history of prescribed burning and studies have shown that these efforts reduce the impacts of high-severity unwanted fire.”

Inside New Mexico’s Largest Wildfire
1,972 views Jul 2, 2022 A short documentary film produced by the Taos News about the historic Calf Canyon–Hermits Peak Fire that burned over 341,000 acres across Northern New Mexico in 2022.

Produced by Nathan Burton and Geoffrey Plant; filmed and edited by Nathan Burton; John Miller, executive producer.

Here’s a video about fire and post-fire effects of the recent fires in New Mexico from the Taos News, thanks to a TSW reader.  Worth watching , 8 minutes.  It seems to me that both things are true; prescribed fire is a useful tool, and accidents can lead to tragic outcomes for people. It also shows people working on recovery with seedlings and tree planting.
 

From Jefferson Public Radio in southern Oregon….

A proposed lawsuit from Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Western Environmental Law Center seeks to protect the marbled murrelet and coastal marten, which are both threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The BLM’s Integrated Vegetation Management forest management plan outlines 150,000 acres of prescribed fires, small diameter tree thinning, and commercial thinning in late successional reserves over the next ten years.

They argue the new decade-long forest management plan will be ineffective. The groups claim the proposed projects would make the old-growth forests less resilient to fire.

But Regional Fire Specialist Chris Adlam with Oregon State University says the BLM plan is a good approach and that the plan will help reintroduce beneficial fire.

“We wanna avoid these large areas of high-severity fire that tend to burn again and again at high severity, and prevent the forest from regenerating,” Adlam says.

He says, there’s a difference between low-intensity and high-intensity wildfires. Low-intensity fires — such as those happening naturally or in prescribed burns — can be beneficial. But high-intensity fires, like many wildfires we see now, can bring negative effects to the landscape and take longer for recovery.

Adlam says the 2020 Slater Fire wiped out huge portions of northern spotted owl habitat. That’s not the only time endangered species habitat has been threatened by high-intensity wildfire.

…

The last line:

Adlam warns that if government agencies and conservation groups don’t work together, they could waste time as future catastrophic wildfires put species at greater risk.

Today’s in-box brought me, courtesy of firescience.gov, a new report “Cascadia burning: The historic, but not historically unprecedented, 2020 wildfires in the Pacific Northwest,” authored by researchers at my alma mater (Beaver Nation), Washington DNR, U. of Dub, and the Fire Service.

Highlights

The 2020 Labor Day Fires were much larger and more severe than others in the recent record, but they were remarkably consistent with many historical fires. Strong east winds and dry conditions are the common denominators in both large historical fires of the past and the 2020 fires.

Forest management and fuel treatments are unlikely to influence fire severity in the most extreme wind-driven fires, like the 2020 Labor Day Fires. Pre-fire forest structure, largely the result of previous forest management activities, had little effect on burn severity when east winds were strong during the 2020 fires.

Fuel treatments around homes and infrastructure may still be beneficial under low and moderate fire-weather conditions.

Adaptation strategies for similar fires in the future in west-side communities might, instead, focus on ignition prevention, fire suppression, and community preparedness.

The NY Times has an interesting essay today by David Wallace-Wells, ‘There is no future in which we somehow manage to suppress all these fires that also does not have any prescribed fires.’ It’s behind a pay wall, but here’s one quote:

“The reality is, there is no ‘no fire’ option,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “There is no future in which we somehow manage to suppress all these fires that also does not have any prescribed fires.” That’s how he presents the landscape: not a choice between fire or no fire. “The choice is what kind of fire,” he said.

Wells also has this passage featuring Stephen Pyne:

“Inevitably, our future holds a lot of fire,” Pyne wrote recently. His goal: “a variety of techniques for a variety of purposes,” he said, including an “urban fire” approach to those burning in the wildland-urban interface, where a much more aggressive firefighting and fire-prevention effort could be targeted. He mentions Indigenous practices, cultural burning and agricultural burning, alongside forest management through mechanical thinning and burning. “Thinning plus fire is what’s really effective,” he said. “In a lot of places, they get the thinning done, but they don’t do the burning. So in a sense, you haven’t solved the problem. You may even have made it worse in some ways, because now you’ve got all these jackpot piles, like gopher mounds all over the countryside, waiting for a fire.”

But Pyne is most focused on what he calls “working with wildfires”: a more open and fluid approach that treats those that begin with an accidental or natural ignition almost like prescribed burns by guiding them toward useful spread. “I wish the agencies were a little more forthright about this” — that some remote fires can just be left to burn, he said. “It’s legal, it’s legitimate. But it can also seem evasive, a little sub rosa,” especially against a backdrop of growing fire anxiety across the West, driven not just by the fires themselves but the smoke they produce. “People get hay fever in the spring,” Pyne said. “Well, you may be dealing with smoke fever in the fall.”

“We don’t have complete control,” he went on. “We don’t control the weather. We don’t control the mountains. But, he added, “We can decide where and when to set a fire, we can do some prior treatments at a certain level, but we can’t treat tens of millions of acres across the West — much less, a couple hundred million acres across the West before we put fire in.”

Ultimately, “I think prescribed burning has got to be a part of it, but it’s not going to be the dominant one,” he said, pointing out that in most years, acreage consumed by wildfire is much larger than what’s burned in prescribed fires and that in 2021, prescribed fires burned nearly 1.3 million acres in the Southeast, where climate conditions make such fires relatively safe, compared with less than 200,000 in the Southwest, West, Mountain West and Pacific Northwest each.

“In the West, the complications are much larger,” he said — and growing, of course. “It’s a lot harder than it was say a 100 or 150 years ago,” because “the landscape is much more vulnerable to explosive fire,” he said. “We still haven’t grappled with the sense that it’s systemic. And I don’t think we ever will.”

In its report on the New Mexico prescribed burn that got away several hours after ignition to burn 341,471 acres so far, the Chief places the blame on climate change: “Climate change is leading to conditions on the ground we have never encountered.” Washington Post commenters aren’t buying it.

1) Loosely translated, some USFS employees screwed up badly by ignoring the weather reports, and are using climate change to cover their mistake.

2) All lies and a coverup. Any first grader in New Mexico can tell you not to light a fire in the spring. The Forest Service operates under a blind and arrogant determination to set fires at any cost.

3) This actually isn’t a climate change issue. This is actually an issue of outright negligence! The Forest Service in New Mexico ignited a controlled burn on a week with red flag days, and strong winds that were gusting to gale force. That’s actually very normal weather for the higher elevation areas in New Mexico at the time those controlled burns were started. If this isn’t an example of outright negligence by the Forest Service, then I don’t know what is! “Climate change” is just a dodge that is a pile of cow crap a mile high!

4) This is BS. Who is running the agency? Larry, Moe, and Curly? The day I heard about the prescribed burn, I thought this is a terrible day to start a fire. It was windy as all get out in Santa Fe. And it is just about always less windy in the city than NE in the higher elevations (where they fires were started). At that time we had experienced no significant rain since last summer and little snow in the last two winters.

The latest on the Pisgah and Nantahala (North Carolina) NFs plan revision (Recently discussed here). From Carolina Public Press: “Objections to proposed plan for Western NC national forests delay process.”

“U.S. Forest Service proposed land management plan for Pisgah and Nantahala forests has drawn thousands of objections, leading to extension of time to review concerns. Forest Service chief now calls plan revision process that took more than a decade unsustainable. ”

Thanks to Nick Smith’s HFHC News for the link.