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Nick Smith listed this South Dakota Public Broadcasting program in his Dec. 10 HFHC news email. The show lasts almost an hour.

In the Moment brings you an hour of conversations about the Black Hills National Forest plan and the debate over the timber count.

Seth Tupper joins us (back & forth with audio clips) for a conversation about the Data Quality Act and administrative action from the Black Hills forest products industry seeking corrections to a scientific report that recommends significantly reducing the timber harvest.

Ben Wudtke with the Black Hills Forest Resource Association discusses the Data Quality Act challenge and detailed examples of challenges to the General Technical Report published by the US Forest Service.

Kevin Woster joins us with thoughts from his conversation with U.S. Senator Mike Rounds regarding the loss of his beloved wife and his return to work in Congress.

This is a graph of lumber value (click to enlarge). The recent low point for lumber was in April, 2020. Remember that date, we’ll come back to it below.

Now see what lumber has done since April of last year. Quadrupled in price by early 2021! That’s a lot of gelt for some lucky mills.

The luckiest of those mills are the ones that had Forest Service timber contracts expiring in April 2020. Why lucky? Because on April 10, 2020, the Undersecretary of Agriculture issued a two-year extension on the performance of those contracts. See what happened? Those purchasers quadrupled their earnings!

In my 40-year experience, Forest Service planners and economists have a perfect track record in predicting the future — they are always wrong.

According to the American Forest Resource Council’s November 2021 newsletter, “the Forest Service’s timber sale outputs for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, which were 2.844 billion board feet (BBF). This is a reduction of more than 11 percent, or 370 million board feet (mmbf), from the previous fiscal year. About 20 percent of the FY 2021 timber sale accomplishment was comprised of firewood permits, biomass, and other convertible materials, so the volume of sawtimber sold was closer to 2.3 BBF from the 188 million acres of National Forest System lands. The Forest Service has cited COVID and the massive 2020 wildfire season as key contributors to the decline. For a comparison, the Washington Department of Natural Resources annually sells about 550 MMBF – nearly 25% of the Forest Service’s national timber sale volume from just 2.5 million acres of state forest trust lands.”

Nick Smith’s Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities newsletter today has a link to a letter by a group of scientists who support the Forestry title of the Build Back Better reconciliation package pending before Congress. Signatories include some well-known folks, such as

Craig D. Allen (PhD Adjunct Professor, Department of Geography & Environmental Studies University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM, and a retired USGS research ecologist — he’s done some outstanding research), Gregory Aplet (Senior Science Director The Wilderness Society), Jerry Franklin, and Thomas Swetnam, Director Emeritus of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona. Too many to list.

“As researchers and practitioners with the overwhelming weight of the scientific evidence behind us, we write in support of the Forestry title of the Build Back Better reconciliation package pending before Congress. In our view, the $27.7 billion investment in science-driven, ecologically based forest and fire management is an historic commitment that should be enacted into law. This investment supports dry forest restoration, climate- and wildfire-adaptation, fire risk reduction, and carbon storage as well as collaboration, forest inventories, monitoring and adaptive management, and other forest programs.”

It is interesting that they mention those who oppose some or all of these management activities:

“A minority view opposes forest and fire management that involves cutting trees or fire use, such as prescribed burning; however, as recent events and the preponderance of scientific evidence demonstrate, the combined influence of more than a century of fire exclusion and rapid climate warming jeopardizes both forests and communities.1 The scientific evidence also shows that combinations of forest and fire management can mitigate wildfire impacts and protect our forested communities from the ravages of climate-driven wildfires.2 The most successful resilience treatments are those that facilitate the role of low- to moderate-severity fire as an ecological process.3 Mechanical treatments in dry pine, dry and moist mixed conifer, pine and oak woodlands, and hardwood forest types reduce tree density, remove ladder fuels, and prepare forests for a warmer, drier climate. To mitigate future fire behavior and severity, prescribed burning is necessary to reduce hazardous fuels.4 Revitalizing and supporting Indigenous burning practices is also a key component of landscape and community resilience.” [emphasis mine]

The National Park Service has released a report on the recent fires in giant sequoia groves. Long report — I’ll post onlt the discussion section here, for its conclusions about the efficacy of fuels treatments and Rx fire, and the need for more treatments.

DISCUSSION

Overall, the KNP Complex and Windy Fires burned all or portions of twenty-eight sequoia groves, burning a total of 6,109 grove acres out of an estimated ~28,000 grove acres rangewide. Although much of this acreage burned at undetected change to low severity (3,905 acres) and is expected to have beneficial effects on grove ecosystem functioning, a total of 2,204 acres burned at moderate to high severity. In previous recent wildfires that burned at moderate to high severity we have seen significant mortality of large giant sequoias (Shive et al., in review). For these two 2021 fires our preliminary estimates (based on mortality rates from these previous field surveys combined with severity mapping for these two fires) suggest a potential loss of giant sequoias over four feet in diameter between 2,261 and 3,637 large giant sequoias. These estimates need to be updated by field surveys in coming years to document the full impact of these fires. Current maps of fire severity and estimated losses from this report can be used to stratify field survey efforts across severity and anticipated mortality.

The findings in this report indicate that wildfires that burn under conditions that result in high to moderate severity fire effects are a significant threat to the persistence of large sequoias. Fires burning with large areas of high severity is a dramatic change from historic fire patterns. Data from previous prescribed burns, wildfires, and tree-rings indicate that prior to the impacts of climate change and fire exclusion, large numbers of large giant sequoias were not killed during fire events (Stephenson 1996).

Our analysis of the KNP Complex, as well as the Windy Fire Burned Area Emergency Response report, indicate that prescribed fire and thinning treatments can reduce fire severity and provide fire fighters with opportunities to safely control and manage wildfires in some locations under some conditions during wildfire events. These treatments may not be effective under all wildfire conditions but did appear to positively affect fire behavior and allow fire suppression in Giant Forest and other groves impacted by these fires.

The mortality values within this report are estimates of potential mortality. The mortality rates used for moderate severity fires do not reflect the highest mortality rate measured in post-fire sequoia groves (45% in Save the Redwoods League data for Nelder Grove) because we wanted to be conservative in our estimates. Moderate severity areas in particular should be tracked over time to assess how these rates vary by location over time.

The KNP Complex BAER report suggests a potential management action of replanting giant sequoias in high severity areas greater than 100 meters distant from intact sequoia grove areas. While planting of giant sequoias as part of reforestation, restoration, and plantation forestry has been done successfully in California (see project descriptions from Sierra Pacific Industries at https://spi-ind.com/ and Fahey et al. 2012 and references therein), evaluating whether post-fire seedling densities are sufficient to restore giant sequoias to burned areas should be done prior to moving ahead with active reforestation. In addition, areas proposed for reforestation should be evaluated for their potential to persist under a changing climate. The National Park Service memo regarding climate change adaptation and the framework focusing on Resist, Accept, Direct (NPS 2012) and the USFS General Technical Report 270 (Meyer et al 2021) are useful frameworks for evaluating restoration areas within a climate change context.

Finally, these ecosystems will continue to see wildfire. Grove areas that were in the fire perimeters but that had very little or no wildfire (“undetected change”) may still be at risk of severe fire in the immediate future. In areas where surface fuels were removed and tree densities were reduced, reburning is unlikely for ~10 years, giving ample opportunity to plan for the next wildfire or prescribed burn. Although reburning at low severity would be desirable, high severity reburns are of concern. Many past high severity burn areas in mixed conifer forests, which are a similar fuel type, have reburned severely due to the high fuel loads created by dense fire-killed trees that eventually fall to the surface, and vigorously regenerating shrubs (Coppoletta et al., 2016; van Wagtendonk, 2012). The potential for reburning at high severity in sequoia groves should be a priority for field investigation and where such an outcome seems likely, these areas should be targeted for fuel reduction work.

Roger Pielke Jr. Tweeted about a post on the “…and Then There’s Physics” blog, which is run by an anonymous someone who describes themself as “not a climate scientist, but a professional and active scientist who teaches and carries out research at a university in the UK. The views I express here are my own and not those of my employer.” The blog post is about “ClimateBall,” which I do not address here. However, a paragraph in the post is worth thinking about in a Smokey Wire context. The first part of a paragraph in the post is:

It would be wonderful if we could have thoughtful discussion amongst people who broadly disagree, but who are willing to listen to what the other person has to say, give it some thought, and maybe actually agree with some – if not all – of it.

Or maybe not agree with much or any of it, but at least listed and give it some thought. That’s the ideal for our discussions here. However, too often we — myself included, at times — respond this way:

Instead, it’s more about scoring points. Find a way to undermine the other person’s argument. Find a way to undermine their credibility. Find a way to dodge their arguments against your position. Don’t necessarily apply the same standards to yourself as you apply to everyone else (of course, you then make out that you hold a higher moral ground). Again, to be clear, I certainly don’t think this is how it should be conducted; it just appears as though this is – sadly – how it is often conducted.

I’m going to print this paragraph and tape it to my monitor, and look at it before I post anything here…. It might be good if we all did that.

From the latest USFS R&D newsletter — subscribe here.

“Most dead trees fall within 10 years after a wildfire. To keep firefighters and those involved in restoration efforts safe, Forest Service researchers and partners developed a new tool that maps where dead trees are likely to fall.”

A related study, “Spatial and temporal assessment of responder exposure to snag hazards in post-fire environments,” notes that:

“Snag hazard increased significantly immediately post-fire, with severe or extreme hazard conditions accounting for 47%, 83%, and 91% of areas burned at low, moderate and high-severity fire, respectively. Patch-size of severe or extreme hazard positively correlated with fire size, exceeding > 20,000 ha (60% of our largest fire) 10-years post-fire when reburn becomes more likely. After 10 years, snag hazard declined rapidly as snags fell or fragmented, but severe or extreme hazard persisted for 20, 30 and 35 years in portions of the low, moderate and high-severity fire areas.”

FWIW, I recently talked with loggers on a fire salvage timber sale, less that one year post-fire, on private land. They said it’s common to see or hear trees fall spontaneously, even with light winds.

This article from Missoulian reporter Rob Cheney offers a real-world look at a thinning/restoration project.

James Stoker compared his log landing piles to sorting change in his pocket.

“That’s the nickels, that’s the dimes, that’s the quarters,” he said, pointing at stacks of de-limbed trees destined to become tipi poles, fence posts, firewood and lumber. “The pennies go to Bonner.”

Those “pennies” — trunks too spindly to make a single 2×4 — used to remain on the hillsides above Gold Creek when Plum Creek Timber Co. and its predecessors were cutting massive pine trees for the plywood mills in Bonner. Today, the mill yard is covered in pennies, and Stoker and his brother Mike make a living cutting, sorting and selling the logs they once left behind.

Instead, what they leave behind are slopes with mature western larch, Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir trees spaced 30 to 50 feet apart at random intervals. The spacing mimics the stumps of the old-growth trees cut in the industrial logging days.

“This is not a timber sale,” BLM Forester Kyle Johnson said. “It’s a stewardship project. It’s based on the relationship we have built with the Stokers, and the relationships they have with small mills.”

Without those relationships, BLM would need to spend between $700 and $1,500 an acre to thin the forest. Finding markets for the little trees, and loggers to cut them, brings the taxpayer cost down to $60 an acre, Johnson said.

…

Over the weekend in Portland, Oregon, a 14-year-old volunteer with Friends of Trees was killed by a falling branch while planting seedlings in the Forest Service’s Sandy River Delta, a part of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.

The tragedy and the irony of this loss struck me hard. At a time when the U.S. Forest Service’s post-fire “hazard tree” logging is breaking the law up-and-down the Pacific Coast, what lessons should the Forest Service learn from this tragic event? Last month, for example, the Forest Service argued in court that because one “charred tree” took the life of an ATV rider in a Montana national forest, the risk associated with dead trees near roads warrants cutting them all down in Oregon’s Willamette National Forest. By that logic, the weekend’s Columbia River Gorge tragedy would counsel for cutting down all trees everywhere.

In this pandemic era, evaluating health and safety risk has become a political football (sorry, Green Bay fans). Republican governors have won a temporary injunction against the federal Nanny State’s imposition of vaccine mandates on large employers. Accusations and counter-accusations of COVID-19 misinformation have proliferated around the globe, many as “efforts to shape political debate.”

The Forest Service is not immune from the temptation to use health and safety misinformation to shape political debate. According to Dr. Travis Heggie, a world-class expert in backcountry safety (and former National Park Service Public Risk Management Specialist and Tort Claims Officer), the risk of being killed by a falling tree (whether dead or alive) while visiting national forests is minuscule. Yet, you wouldn’t know it from the Forest Service’s hyper-ventilative rhetoric around “hazardous” trees.

So before you venture out into the woods this weekend, consider these facts:

1) Falls while hiking or climbing are the leading cause of backcountry deaths (40%). Avalanches account for 15%, drowning incidents account for 10%, and heart attacks account for 10%. Deaths by tree fall account for 1% — same as deaths by bear attack.

2) You are much more likely to die where you live than while visiting our federal public lands. The National Park Service’s human mortality rate is 0.1 deaths per 100,000 recreational visits. This is much lower than the mortality rate of the overall U.S. population (844 deaths/100,000 people).

3) Trees do kill a substantial number of urban and highway road users – about 7,000 per year. Not as a result of trees falling on drivers, but because drunk/young drivers careen off roads into standing trees.

If you’re mature, as am I, use a hiking pole to prevent falling and to help clamber over down trees on and off trails. Don’t drive to the woods drunk nor swim or boat while intoxicated. Hang your food if camping in bear country. Most of all, enjoy our national forests, if the Forest Service is kind enough to let you in.

“KEEP OUR FORESTS” is the title of the “A Declaration, and Call to Action, from California’s Scientists, Land Managers and Former Government Leaders.” It’s named for the historic Venado district of West Colusa County, where a meeting was held and the document was signed. Signatories include former Gov. Jerry Brown, former CAL FIRE Director Ken Pimlott, and a number of scientists, timber company reps, and NGOs. Among 4 key principles is:

Address forest resiliency on every acre. We know that fire will eventually impact all of the landscape,
so we must have a plan to address forest resiliency on every acre. Planned fuels treatments should
include the use of fire whenever possible to increase the amount of forestland treated. For example, a
proactive policy and regulatory strategy is needed to maintain future forest health. NEPA and CEQA
should be updated to consider the detrimental impacts of decades of fire suppression on our forested
landscapes and the importance of beneficial fire on maintaining forest health.

The last sentence is a great one for discussing here on Smokey Wire. How might NEPA be “updated to consider the detrimental impacts of decades of fire suppression on our forested landscapes and the importance of beneficial fire on maintaining forest health”?