New Topics or Questions from Readers

The purpose of comments on this page is to raise new topics that don’t fit existing posts.

117 thoughts on “New Topics or Questions from Readers”

  3. New PNAS study on area burned and climate change: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2213815120

    From the abstract: Our results indicate that nearly all the observed increase in BA is due to anthropogenic climate change as historical model simulations accounting for anthropogenic forcing yield 172% (range 84 to 310%) more area burned than simulations with natural forcing only. We detect the signal of combined historical forcing on the observed BA emerging in 2001 with no detectable influence of the natural forcing alone. In addition, even when considering fuel limitations from fire-fuel feedbacks, a 3 to 52% increase in BA relative to the last decades is expected in the next decades (2031 to 2050), highlighting the need for proactive adaptations.

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    • Unfortunately, this study is useless because the authors did not account for wildfire use. It’s all too common for academics to be completely unaware of perhaps the single most important independent factor in Burned Area for the past decade; drip torches and dragon eggs.

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      • Thanks John and Sharon: Osbornes have always been one of my favorite research tools when researching past forest conditions. Most of the work I have done with them has been in western Oregon. Ridgelines were mostly open then, along the routes of ancient Indian Trails, and formed a significant portion of the “natural firebreaks” others have referenced. Other such breaks followed rivers and creeks and lake shorelines and were largely absent of trees and firewood used by fishermen, campers, and nearby residents. You may want to include this link in your post of this article for those interested in more examples: http://www.orww.org/Osbornes_Project/index.html

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        • This article was about using the photos to “illustrate the consequences of relentless fire suppression” – not from restrictions on logging adopted to protect old growth habitat (as some seem to think). It also seems focused on “high elevation forests” where logging (or not) is less of a factor.

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  6. From the Seattle Times……..shooting of 500,000 barred owls to save spotted owls.

    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/feds-propose-shooting-one-owl-to-save-another-in-pacific-northwest/

    The wildlife biologist on the Colville National Forest insisted on using the Barred Owl as a indicator species, and we actually set up a very large management area east of the Kettle Crest to protect Barred Owl habitat. The Colville did NOT have spotted owls.

    I did have a long discussion with the wildlife biologist for the Colville and he was fine with the barred owl moving west. I told him I considered it an invasive species. He said it was fine, because the Barred Owl moved into the forest “naturally”.

    Well, somewhat naturally. His take it was the barns and other structures on the plains that allowed the Barred Owl to hopscotch across the Dakota’s and Montana’s to the Colville National Forest.

    Vladimir

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  7. I had a question about the FY 2024 budget (which is recently approved) and the impacts on USFS Research Stations and R&D. It seems like there is a hiring freeze in at least some (if not all) research stations, and it seems like the discussion is that this is a result of some combination of budget shortfalls in the budget (a small cut) as well as some allocation issues within the Budget Modernization efforts. Does anyone know what is happening here, and if hiring will be starting again anytime soon?

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  8. Good Day,
    I am trying to ascertain the process of computing the tons per acre of dead trees and ground fall that esxists in the Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest, Curry County side, that was produced by the Chetco Bar Mega Fire. Where do I start? What are the formulas? Is there an existing Forest Service Data Base, How do general computations account for area specific dead. Are computions stated as an average relative to area or by studing density of specific areas.? Baer report indicated 100,000 acres of dead trees (lidar snapshot in time) and that estimate did not account for subsequent death year two and three. Obviousl I need direction.
    Thank You GRM

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  10. This case was mentioned here: https://forestpolicypub.com/2021/07/11/nfs-litigation-weekly-july-09-2021/
    I found a Claims Court decision from last summer. I don’t know if it’s been appealed.
    https://ecf.cofc.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2021cv1492-15-0

    The case is a breach of contract claim involving an authorization by the Umatilla National Forest for snowmobile use in the parking lot of the Spout Springs ski area (the plaintiffs). The record indicated that “material interference” by snowmobiling with the contract began at least by 2013, so the lawsuit was not filed within the statute of limitations, and the case was dismissed.

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  11. For Immediate Release
    July 8, 2024, 2024
    Contact: Denise Barrett, Forest Bridges Executive Director, (425) 306-6316 [email protected]

    FOREST BRIDGES URGES THE BLM TO CHOOSE A MORE INTENSIVE ACTIVE MANAGEMENT ALTERNATIVE FOR THE CASCADE-SISKIYOU NATIONAL MONUMENT

    As the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) considers public comments to finalize its draft Resource Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement (RMP/EIS) for the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, Forest Bridges: The O&C Forest Habitat Project (Forest Bridges) is urging the land management agency to choose a more intensive active management alternative over its current “moderate level” preferred alternative.

    According to Denise Barrett, Forest Bridges’ Executive Director: “The BLM’s proposed 100-year timeline and conservative thinning and prescribed fire treatments for the Monument are, in Forest Bridges’ studied opinion, insufficient in pace, scope and extent to mitigate for the unprecedented wildfire, drought and disease threats this biological wonder faces. We feel it is a moral imperative to urgently address these threats–in the right measure–to ensure the Monument is properly restored and sustained for future generations.”

    On July 3, 2024, the Roseburg-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity submitted to the BLM an in-depth analysis and set of arguments, grounded in Western Science and Indigenous Knowledge, for the Agency to not only choose the more intensive active management alternative—the 50-year restoration program of thinning and prescribed fire (“Alternative B”)–but consider accelerating the timeline further.

    “We also proposed that the BLM apply a metered treatment to all areas including old forests and wildland reserves, at high risk for high-severity wildfires,” Barrett said. “All our recommendations we believe can be done legally and by applying sound Indigenous cultural and ecosystem management perspectives and approaches, as well as including Tribal people in the restoration and on-going maintenance activities.”

    Barrett recalled that in August 2023 Forest Bridges had submitted its own proposed “Active Conservation Management” alternative for the Monument during the BLM’s public scoping for what today is the draft RMP-EIS. In it, the organization proposed an aggressive five-year restoration program of thinning and prescribed fire across the Monument to achieve the goal that 95% of wildfires are low- to moderate-severity. “Dry forests in southwest Oregon experience high-severity wildfires at a rate of 36%,” said Barrett. “And we want to reduce that occurrence to just 5%, which is within the historical range when Indigenous people stewarded these lands.”

    Forest Bridges Board Chair Thomas McGregor indicated that the BLM included portions of Forest Bridges’ proposed alternative in modeling and developing the four management proposals in the draft RMP-EIS for the Monument. “But what surprised us,” said McGregor, “is that despite having rated Alternative B the highest of all Alternatives across a range of restoration, conservation and protection outcomes, the Agency still selected Alt C as its preferred alternative.”

    Barrett said Forest Bridges surmised that the BLM likely selected the slower, less extensive active management approach to minimize visual and soil impacts over a longer period. Forest Bridges stressed to the BLM the importance of weighing short-term impacts to achieve long-term sustained outcomes rather than protracting the high-severity fire, drought and disease risks to the Monument.

    “Specifically concerning visual resource management,” said McGregor, “we emphasized the dynamic, not static, nature of the Monument’s ecosystems and shared credible evidence of a public that would accept more intensive active management to ensure the Monument is restored and sustained for future generations.”

    Forest Bridges co-founder and Board member Rick Sohn said: “The whole premise of sustaining these plant environments and multi-species habitats is not feasible if they burn with hot fires. That we in southwest Oregon face temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in early July, underscores the urgency of our request for the BLM to at minimum select the more intensive active management alternative.”

    The BLM’s Proposed RMP/Final EIS for the Cascade-Siskiyou Monument is anticipated to be issued this Fall, with a Record of Decision and Approved RMP released in January 2025. You can find Forest Bridges’ public comments on the draft CSNM RMP/EIS on the project and news pages of the forestbridges.org website.

    –END–

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