Federal Lands Litigation – update through July 31, 2026

by

The courthouses have been busier than usual …

FOREST SERVICE

Forest plan amendment vacated in Friends of the Bitterroot v. Burgum (D. Montana)

On July 14, the district court vacated the recent forest plan amendment that violated NEPA and ESA when it eliminated previous road-density standards (discussed here) while the Forest Service analyzes how that amendment could harm grizzly bears and bull trout.  The court found that it would not burden forest management much because no prospective projects would require the amendment, and if they did, they could employ project-specific amendments as they have in the past.

Reversal of district court opinion in Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. Higgins (9th Cir.)

On July 16, the circuit court, in a 2-1 opinion, reversed the Idaho district court’s approval of the Hanna Flats Good Neighbor Authority project on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest.  While for most projects there is an administrative review process, and plaintiffs must raise issues in that process in order to pursue them in court, the circuit court held that the Healthy Forests Restoration Act provides an exemption for “collaborative restoration projects” like this one.  The court would also not require that an issue should have been raised during scoping in this situation.  The district court must now address the use of a categorical exclusion for the “wildland-urban interface” for this project that was based on the local county’s definition of the WUI.  The opinion is here.  This project has come up here previously, most recently here.

Preliminary injunction granted in Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. Carlton (D. Montana)

On July 27, the district court issued a preliminary injunction delaying the Greenhorn Vegetation Project on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.  This case is another instance of the “analytical gap” left by failing to support with the best available science an assumption that grizzly bears need only ten acres for secure habitat.  The project would include logging and burning on 16,000 acres near Yellowstone National Park.  The court mentioned a similar injunction on the Custer Gallatin National Forest.  See two other pending cases with this issue here.  The article includes a link to the complaint.

BLM

Preliminary injunction granted (D. Nevada)

In May, Great Basin Resource Watch, Prayer Horse Inc. and Taboosi Dikudu NO’Obatu Numma Cooperative sued the BLM over its sale of 2,000 acres of public land in and around the Anaconda Copper Mine site to Atlantic Richfield Co.  On July 18, the district court agreed that the federal government did not justify how the sale (at no cost to ARCO) was in the public interest, and that the government failed to consider the effects of potential future mining on the land, which court documents showed was “reasonably foreseeable,” and the court granted a preliminary injunction.  Opponents are concerned about loss of federal oversight of future activities.

New lawsuit

A gold mining company with claims on BLM land has filed a lawsuit against the BLM’s approval of Idaho Power’s proposed 300-mile transmission line which starts in Boardman, Oregon, and ends near Melba, Idaho.  Construction of the $1.5 billion line started last year after nearly two decades of planning and negotiations, and the project has been widely viewed as a key component of Oregon’s wind and solar energy ambitions.  Plaintiffs are suing both the BLM and Idaho Power, and are seeking damages if the line is not rerouted around their claims.

Preliminary injunction in Cascadia Wildlands v. U. S. Bureau of Land Management (D.  Oregon)

On July 17, the district court enjoined the 42 Divide Project as it applies to older forest stands in late successional reserves until the lawsuit is resolved.  A standard in the 2016 Southwestern Oregon resource management plan limits logging that would delay development of northern spotted owl nesting and roosting habitat (60% canopy cover) by 20 years or more.  The court found that portions of the Project would violate the plan, saying, “In particular, the court is troubled by the assumptions built into the modeling that do not appear to be supported anywhere in the record.”  The article includes a link to the opinion.

Preliminary injunction denied in Applegate Siskiyou Alliance v. U. S. Bureau of Land Management (D. Oregon)

On July 23, the district court denied an injunction against proceeding with the BLM’s logging activities under the Ashland SOS Project, stating, “The court is satisfied the agency took a ‘hard look’ at the environmental consequences of hardwood tree removal within the meaning of NEPA.” The court deferred to the BLM’s analysis methods, adding, “The court will not second-guess BLM’s decision to analyze the project’s impact across treatment units and not by specific tree type.”  (Query – does increased deference to the “hard look” mean it is now really a “soft look?”)  Plaintiffs also argued that the scope of hardwood removal triggers BLM’s obligation to supplement the EA to account for the differences between the Project as planned and the Project as implemented, but the court viewed this change as a minor element of the project.  The court concluded, “The public has an interest in not experiencing a heightened risk of severe, uncontrolled wildfires … And BLM has an interest in effectively carrying out its forest management plan for the long-term health of the Project area.” The article includes a link to the opinion.

New lawsuit

On July 24, the Wyoming Association of Professional Archaeologists filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management’s Wyoming and Colorado offices. The plaintiffs claim that in 2010 and 2024 rulemakings, the BLM changed how it goes about implementing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in a way that oversteps its authority and potentially conflicts with the Archaeological Resources Protections Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.  The case involves items found at specific locations where human remains had been found which the BLM allegedly improperly determined were “funerary objects” that it intended to repatriate to native tribes.  They also question the role given to tribes by the regulations.

New lawsuits:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Bureau of Land Management (C.D. California) and Fort Mohave Indian Tribe v. Burgum (C.D. California)

On July 28, two lawsuits were filed against BLM’s approval of the use of a decommissioned oil and gas pipeline across the Mojave Trails National Monument and other protected federal public land in southeastern California’s Mojave Desert to transport water from the Mojave Groundwater Bank to communities in San Bernardino County.  The plan by Cadiz, Inc. includes bulldozing access roads, installing pumping infrastructure, and using heavy-duty equipment. Issues in the complaints include effects of these activities as well as the groundwater pumping effects on springs and National Historic Preservation Act responsibilities.  The Sierra Club is co-plaintiff with CBD in their lawsuit; additional plaintiffs in the second suit are the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Native American Land Conservancy, and National Parks Conservation Association.  The article includes links to both complaints.  A court stopped another attempt at this project in 2022.

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Bureau of Land Management (D. Arizona)

On July 29, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Maricopa Bird Alliance sued the BLM for what they say is “unlawful cattle grazing” in southeast Arizona.  They are challenging the biological opinion from the Fish and Wildlife Service relied on by the BLM to authorize cattle grazing, alleging that six years of field surveys found continuing damage to endangered species critical habitat from cattle grazing.  Riparian habitat species at issue include the southwestern willow flycatcher, yellow-billed cuckoo, Gila chub, Gila topminnow, razorback sucker, spikedace, loach minnow, narrow-headed garter snake, and northern Mexican garter snake.”  The article includes a link to the complaint.

Not a lawsuit (yet)

In late June, the BLM granted Townsite Solar 2 an amendment to its existing permit from 2023 that had allowed the company to build a solar farm to instead allow a data center.  The decision process did not involve the public, and it was based on a “determination of National Environmental Policy Act adequacy,” that determined the environmental review for a solar project was sufficient for the data center.  Boulder City had been negotiating a lease for a data center with a current moratorium in place due to the citizens’ opposition; now they see having the impacts from federal land use within city limits without the lease payments to the city.  In terms of the ability to site data centers on federal lands:

“It’s an extraordinary and liberal interpretation of existing law and regulations,” said Mike Ford, who rose through the ranks of the BLM to lead public lands policy nationally during his 25-year agency career before becoming a consultant. “It’s unprecedented in my personal experience.”

ENDANGERED SPECIES

TRO denied in San Francisco Baykeeper v. U. S. Bureau of Reclamation (E.D. California)

On July 9, the district court denied a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction concerning Reclamation’s planned operations for Shasta Dam and Reservoir for the remainder of this summer and early fall because those operations would arguably not comport with the requirements of a 2024 Endangered Species Act biological opinion.  The court held:  “Because no party presents arguments related to or articulates standards governing how the Court should resolve a dispute about interpretation of the terms of the BiOp under remotely analogous circumstances, the Court concludes that it cannot on this record find that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed or that they have a “fair chance” at success on the merits sufficient to trigger the “serious questions” injunctive relief standard” (emphasis by the court).

Settlement in Western Watersheds Project v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (D. Nevada)

On July 9, the parties stipulated to a settlement agreement whereby the Fish and Wildlife Service will submit a 12-month finding to the Federal Register with regard to a petition to list the Kings River pyrg.  The species is an aquatic springsnail measuring only millimeters in length. Its entire known wild population is restricted to13 shallow, isolated springs within a 14-mile radius in the Thacker Pass and Montana Mountains areas of Humboldt County, Nevada.  A prior lawsuit involving a lithium mine on BLM lands in this area was discussed here (with a link to earlier discussions).

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (D. Oregon)

On July 16, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to issue timely findings on the Center’s petitions to list the Alvord chub, a desert fish from Oregon and Nevada, and four springsnails from Oregon and California — the cinnamon juga, Donner und Blitzen pebblesnail, Great Basin ramshorn and banded juga. These species often exist in only a few locations in the Great Basin; the chub and pebblesnail are found on BLM lands, and the juga on the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.  They are vulnerable to groundwater pumping, water diversions, livestock grazing, habitat degradation, pollution, invasive species and the intensifying effects of climate change.  The press release has a link to the complaint.

In July the Trump Administration issued ESA regulations that would replace Biden Administration policies with the Trump Administration policies that the Biden Administration had replaced.  The changes are summarized in this article, which concludes, “The regulatory changes are almost certain to generate litigation.”  Here is the litigation to date.

On July 14,  the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries finalized a rule that will remove from their definitions of  “harm” of protected plants and animals habitat changes that could be detrimental to a species’ survival.  The definition is used in the context of “incidental take” of listed species; modifying the habitat of ESA-listed species could result in prohibited take, which has been the primary means by which the ESA impacts activities on private land.  (On federal lands, a jeopardy analysis is required prior to an incidental take statement, and so jeopardy analysis should not be affected by this change, nor should critical habitat analysis.)  The USFWS’s former definition— “an act which actually kills or injures wildlife…[and] may include significant habitat modification where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding or sheltering”—was upheld in 1995 by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Revisiting this is premised on the recent Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright that gives less deference to agency interpretation of laws.  At least six lawsuits have been filed since then.  Here are three.  (Here is a take on their likelihood of success.)

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. Burgum (W.D. Washington) (8 plaintiffs)

New lawsuit:  Environmental Protection Information Center v. National Marine Fisheries Service (N.D. California) (4 organizations and a fishing guide)

New lawsuit: Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and the Squaxin Island Tribe (W.D. Washington)

Legislation:

A bill has been introduced in Congress that would reverse this decision:   “Congress enacted the Endangered Species Act to prevent extinction – not to document it after the damage has already been done,” U.S. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) said in a release. “

Crossclaim filed in Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation v. U. S. Department of the Interior (D. Montana)

On July 21, the Center for Biological Diversity, who had intervened in a 2025 lawsuit on the side of the Fish and Wildlife Service regulation that provided automatic protections for threatened wildlife (known as the “blanket rule”), sought to oppose the current administration’s removal of those protections.  The news release includes a link to the Center’s motion.

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. Burgum (D. Hawaii)

On July 31, seven conservation groups challenged the promulgation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of the “Critical Habitat Exclusion Rule,” which changes the way economic considerations are used in designating critical habitat.  The new rule requires regulators to consider excluding areas from critical habitat designations when presented with “credible information” of meaningful financial impacts that would result from setting aside areas for the benefit of vulnerable wildlife.  The complaint characterizes this as giving special interests an “effective veto” over critical habitat protection.

OTHER

Case dismissed (10th Circuit)

On June 8, the circuit court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit challenging New Mexico’s Wildlife Conservation and Public Safety Act.  The law prohibits the use of traps, snares, and wildlife poisons on New Mexico public lands. The lawsuit, brought by state and national trapping organizations, challenged a narrow provision of the law that allows for religious and ceremonial trapping by members of federally recognized Tribes and Pueblos. The court held that these claims were not ripe for judicial review, and plaintiffs’ asserted psychological injuries were legally inadequate.  Traps are known to kill federally endangered Mexican wolves.

New lawsuit:  Native Village of Hooper Bay v. U. S. Army Corps of Engineers v. (D. Alaska)

On Jul 23, the Native Village of Hooper Bay, the Native Village of Paimiut, Chevak Native Village, and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Army Corps and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after the Corps issued a permit to Alaska to build a road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. They allege violations of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Alaska National Interest Lands Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.  The press release includes a link to the complaint.

Case partially dismissed:  Northern Alaska Environmental Center v. Burgum (D. Alaska)

On July 24, the district court dismissed claims challenging the transfer of 1.38 million acres along the Dalton Highway and Trans-Alaska Pipeline corridor to the State of Alaska because the title had already vested with Alaska, and Alaska’s sovereign immunity bars such claims by private parties against the State in federal court.  The land had previously been withdrawn from lands made available with Alaska statehood, but were recently released by a Trump Administration Public Land Order.  Title remains with the federal government for another 700,000 acres, so the court denied a motion to dismiss but it also denied a preliminary injunction.  The ongoing case would address questions about NEPA, FLPMA and ANILCA compliance.  The article has a link to the opinion.

Beyond the Chainsaw Debate: Finding Common Ground- Guest Post by Don Amador- Plus Designing Collaborative Processes at Larger Scales

by

 

Don Amador sent the below piece last week- he explores the world of collaboration and suggests its application to wilderness management.  What struck me, though, was the difference between national efforts to collaborate and local (and state) efforts. What has been tried nationally, and how well has it worked?

Although I’ve worked with a variety of FACA committees, my everyday kind of experience was with the RACNAC, which you might recall was that national FACA committee designed to give national input on the State Roadless Rules.  I remember some of my colleagues watching one member looking at photos of dogs on his laptop while the discussion was going on.  My colleagues thought “I can’t believe taxpayers are paying his travel so he can watch dog videos.”  At the same time, folks like Ray Vaughan and Dale Harris did amazing work in trying to bring people together. I guess I’ll just call that “differing levels of commitment.”

Comparing the State effort and the national effort (yes, I attended most meetings of both), I think the difference was that the state people were, in some sense, in relationship.  This was one of many issues that the same folks at the state level dealt with.  They were also more familiar with details of the land and the practices.  They were all committed to the state and to the effort. The group did include a  representative from  TWS, who both negotiated,  and at the same time, told us his organization would never support the Rule no matter what was in it, based on principle).  And I remember John Swartout filling the role of bringing people together, one of the unsung and invisible heroes of such efforts.

I’ve seen at least four problems with efforts to collaborate at the national level- you may want to add some others.

  1. Most annoying to me as a Designated Federal Official.. the regrettable FACA process.  One of many USG ideas with good intentions but the way it is designed has serious problems that are never fixed. See theme.. USG management.. not continuous improvement, not even discontinuous improvement, it’s more like accretion of incapacity.
  2. National people get chosen as representatives of their groups with little or no experience at the ground level.  However ideological battles get fought (e.g. slogan-slinging), outcomes are not always practical.
  3.  The voices of the people who will implement the decisions are not at the table. Nor, in the case of issues with public comment, the voices of those who actually read the public comments. The implementers may be in the room, but not allowed to take part.  Not the same as a local collaborative. Also collaborators at the local level tend to also be implementers, or implementing adjacent.
  4. There is no feedback and learning over time about implementation of ideas.   There could have been for the Planning Rule FACA, but keeping a national group together over time is much more difficult due to big P political factors. The Idaho Roadless Rule has a formal process for dealing with problems and changes, and had an ongoing group to review. I heard that interest was lost and they disbanded.  Maybe someone can tell us more?

It seems to me that at least some of the above problems could be remediated by a different design.  Perhaps the USG is not the one to do it (until someone fixes FACA).  Perhaps an NGO of some kind could start something, perhaps building via groups organized by state that then submit recommendations to a national group.   It would be interesting for our social science researchers to look at a broad range of other issues and how collaborative groups are organized and funded.  Perhaps some nice foundation would fund that research?

What are your own experiences with organized collaborative efforts at local, state, and national levels?

Anyway, here is Don Amador’s guest post:

A recent High Country News article titled, “A Ban on Chainsaws in Wilderness is Performative, Not Practical" has sparked renewed discussion about one of the most sensitive issues in public land management. While the article focuses on whether chainsaws should be used to clear trails in designated Wilderness Areas following the unprecedented destruction caused by Western megafires, I believe the larger story is not about chainsaws at all. It is about finding common ground on stewardship
of designated Wilderness areas.

For decades, wilderness stewardship has been guided by principles established in the Wilderness Act of 1964, a landmark law that has served our nation well by protecting some of America’s most treasured landscapes. At the time, few could have imagined the scale of the ecological changes that would occur during the first quarter of the 21st century. Today, millions of acres of federal forests have experienced repeated high-severity wildfires, widespread insect infestations, prolonged drought, and extensive tree mortality. Across much of the West, trails that once connected visitors to remote landscapes are now buried beneath thousands of fallen trees or surrounded by hazardous stands of dead timber.

These conditions have created management challenges unlike anything previous generations of land managers encountered. The question is no longer simply whether trail crews should use crosscut saws or chainsaws. The more important question is whether our current management framework is keeping pace with the realities on the ground.

Fortunately, this is not a new challenge for public land management. Throughout my career, I have watched federal and state agencies, conservation organizations, recreation groups, local governments, industry representatives, scientists, and volunteers come together to solve difficult resource issues that once seemed impossible to overcome. Collaborative efforts addressing post-fire recovery, watershed restoration, sustainable trail management, forest health, invasive species, wildlife habitat, and outdoor recreation have repeatedly demonstrated that the best solutions rarely emerge from one stakeholder acting alone.

That same collaborative model should now be applied to the growing challenge of maintaining access and stewardship within our National Wilderness Preservation System.
Unfortunately, much of the current discussion appears to be occurring within isolated circles rather than through an open, transparent collaborative process. Some conversations are taking place within the Forest Service. Others involve wilderness advocacy organizations, outfitters, volunteer trail groups, or local communities. Yet there has been little evidence of a broad national dialogue that intentionally brings together the full range of interests that care deeply about America’s  wilderness.

The Forest Service has not adopted a nationwide policy authorizing chainsaw use in Wilderness, nor should anyone expect such a significant policy question to be resolved through isolated project decisions. Instead, the agency continues to evaluate requests under the long-established “minimum requirements” process authorized by the Wilderness Act. While that approach provides flexibility on a case-by-case basis, it does little to answer the larger question facing land managers across the West: How should wilderness stewardship evolve as our forests continue to change?

A collaborative forum would allow participants to move beyond the emotionally charged question of  “chainsaws versus crosscut saws” and instead examine broader issues such as post-fire forest conditions, trail sustainability, volunteer capacity, workforce limitations, visitor safety, ecological impacts, and long-term stewardship objectives. Rather than debating a single tool, stakeholders could focus on identifying management strategies capable of preserving both wilderness character and meaningful public access for future generations.

Decisions developed through open dialogue are far more likely to gain public acceptance than policies developed behind closed doors or through litigation. Even when consensus cannot be achieved, participants gain a better understanding of one another’s perspectives and often discover common ground that would otherwise remain hidden.

This issue also offers an opportunity for the Forest Service to demonstrate leadership. The agency has decades of experience participating in collaborative partnerships throughout the West. Applying that same collaborative model to wilderness trail management could help establish a thoughtful path forward that respects both the intent of the Wilderness Act and the unprecedented conditions facing today’s land managers.

None of us knows what the final answer will be. It may involve increased funding for traditional trail crews, expanded volunteer training, improved post-fire restoration strategies, additional research, carefully limited administrative flexibility, or perhaps entirely new approaches that have yet to be considered. Those solutions should emerge from collaboration rather than confrontation.

Massive wildfires in the American West have changed many forested lands dramatically over the past fifteen to 20 years. Rather than asking whether chainsaws belong in Wilderness, perhaps the more important question is this: Can we bring together the people who care most about these remarkable places and work collaboratively to ensure they remain healthy, accessible, and resilient for generations to come? – That is a conversation worth having.
# # #
Don Amador has been in the trail advocacy, post wildfire recovery, and recreation management profession for 35 years. Don served as chair of the CA State Parks Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Commission (circa 1994-2000). Don served as an AD Driver for the Forest Service North Zone Fire Cache during the 2022, 2023, and 2024 Fire Seasons.

More From Brett Roper on the Cottonwood Fire

by

As Brett says, an op-ed isn’t long enough to contain all the nuance that folks at TSW are interested in. Thanks to him for writing in with “the rest of his view of the story.”

I appreciate your thoughts on my editorial. As you can imagine it is not possible to get everything you want to say in 600 words or less. You covered the points I wanted to make well – the Fishlake NF may not have prioritized the right areas or right treatments if they wanted to limit effects on human infrastructure. My view of recent aerial photographs suggests they may have gotten some of the harvest done, but that they had not done enough. The Big Flat NEPA document never even talks about conflagration, despite the Twitchell Fire in 2010 burning in the exact same way (high intensity fire and flooding debris torrent) at the Northern boundary of this fire. Had it been more open about what was likely to happen rather than a general discussion of reducing fire risk, maybe the public would have been more involved. Like all big fires, it is hard to know if any thing the Forest Service did would have change the fire behavior – but they only had one action alternative so there is no way to critique their analysis of this topic. These large scale NEPA projects, where lots of acres are treated a long way from where people live, are common in this Utah. When I run into these treatments in the woods, it is clear that they will reduce fire intensity within the treated area but probably not at the larger scale. Given budget and staffing reductions, I don’t see this as the most successful approach for all places and situations. Don’t get me wrong, there are many forests in the West that are aggressively treating forests as close to human habitation as the public will allow (but NIMBYs are a different problem).

The issues I did not add for lack of space include there was no litigation of any of the three NEPA projects in the Cottonwood Burn area signed in 2011, 2016, and 2018. Lawsuits are often cited as a reason why the Forest Service can’t do the right thing. So, arguments that environmental groups were a problem does not fit this situation. It is important to recognize one of the reasons they justified treatments in this area (rightfully so) was it was in WUI. The descriptions of the treatments in the NEPA document are at best vague, which is becoming more common in Utah. Seems like the descriptions could have taken a little or a lot of the vegetation from most of the described units depending upon who was leading the effort.

As for the comment that this fire was so big the treatments couldn’t be expected to stop it. That might be true, but it is a best-case scenario as the Forest Service had asked for and received the authority to treat a lot of acres for a long time in the burn area. Finally, it is the big fires we can’t stop that cause most of the problems and are becoming more common. These are the fires the public are concerned about.

This is an important point as a number of politicians from Utah and other states came to this fire and suggested that if the Forest Service had just been allowed to manage this area (https://www.fox13now.com/news/politics/destruction-in-beaver-has-utahs-political-leaders-pushing-forest-management) we would have been better off. The problem was that the Agency had been able to manage it and the fire and floods still came.

More questions… were the fuel treatment decisions done with the idea of PODs and landscape-scale fuels designs? Because it does seem like consideration of different wildfire scenarios would be a topic considered in the NEPA document.  I could see that they could still have one alternative, but have used different wildfire scenarios in developing the alternatives.

It would be interesting to see if other units approached their fuels reduction designs including different wildfire scenarios.  Certainly “it happened before and now there are lots of dead fuels” seems like it would be a consideration.

Wildfire-Related Roundup III. Why Weren’t Treatments Done, or Done Right, or in the Right Places?

by
A “false-color” after image taken from a NASA satellite of the Cottonwood Fire burn area on June 29, 2026. (Photo: NASA Earth Observatory by Michala Garrison)

8.  Priorities and Design Op-ed on Cottonwood Fire.

Today, again thanks to Nick Smith, there’s an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune by a Forest Service retiree, Brett Roper. It’s about the impacts of the Cottonwood Fire, and suggests that projects were done, but did not focus on treatments that would protect private land (wrong places?).

The Cottonwood Fire burnt nearly 100,000 acres east of the city of Beaver despite multiple recent Forest Service decisions implementing thousands of acres of treatments to reduce fire risk and produce timber in that area. As part of this effort, the Forest Service collaborated with Utah’s Watershed Restoration Initiative and spent millions of dollars between 2021 and 2026 to reduce the risk of fire and protect streams. Yet the area burned and flooded.

*****************************

The Forest Service did what was legally required. The issue was these assessments never discussed the possibility of a future conflagration across private land or the types of treatments that might have altered that kind of fire’s behavior. Instead, these documents focused on discussing timber harvest away from the private land boundary, maintaining vegetation diversity and restoring the historic fire regime.

Landowners who build houses in forested areas assume a greater risk of their properties being destroyed by fire. That does not negate the Forest Service’s responsibility to design alternatives that might mitigate some of the fire risks as they are the agency with expertise.

The Forest Service seems focused on meeting targets measured in acres treated. The question that needs to be answered is whether the status quo is the right approach, or whether the Forest Service should also be working with the local public to design vegetation projects that are more likely to stop the progress of fires near human habitation, even if such treatments are costly.

Now many of us would read that and say “what’s up with that? don’t some funding sources prioritize WUI (was that HFRA or something more recent?)  Didn’t the communities and FS work together to design projects that would help protect private lands?”  Or did the communities not want cutting near them (I’ve heard that from homeowners in Colorado)?

Or, as Zeke Lunder said about the fire.. maybe it got to the point where any fuel treatments might not have worked.

  • Suppression is extremely difficult in areas with heavy dead timber (snags) from previous burns; direct attack is often not possible, and retardant is less effective in dense, downed fuels.
  • Criticism of firefighting efforts is common, but extreme conditions and landscape limitations often make suppression impossible once fires are this large.

As I drive around, I see prescribed fire treatments right next to communities. Plus in some places, communities strongly agitate for the FS to do work in specific areas. The op-ed makes it sound like the FS does the right thing in the wrong place, more or less everywhere (of course, that’s a click-inducing headline and not what Roper wrote.)  Which is not my observation.   What does that look like in your neck of the words?

9.  Fuel Treatments Held Up by Litigation. We’re familiar with the “we planned it but it got stuck in litigation” as documented by the folks at PERC and Breakthrough, as well as others. Here’s one from a few days ago (from AFRC):

The Grasshopper Fire is burning through forests on Oregon’s Mt. Hood National Forest that were identified and prioritized years ago for hazardous fuels reduction through a collaborative effort involving local communities and the U.S. Forest Service. Yet much of that work remains unimplemented after years of litigation and administrative delays slowed or prevented the projects from moving forward.

These forests are located in one of the High Priority Landscapes identified in the Biden Administration’s 2022 Wildfire Crisis Strategy that targeted “high risk firesheds” to improve resilience to wildfire.

Years before the current wildfire, the Wasco County Forest Collaborative worked with the U.S. Forest Service to develop the Grasshopper Restoration Project, the 27 Road Fuel Break, and the Hootnanny Project to reduce hazardous fuels, meet the intent of the Wildfire Crisis Strategy, and improve forest conditions across more than 11,000 acres.

The Grasshopper Restoration Project became the subject of litigation brought by Oregon Wild under the National Environmental Policy Act challenging the paperwork supporting the project. The Forest Service ultimately settled the case by removing less than two percent of the proposed treatment areas, reducing management in others, imposing additional project restrictions, and paying Oregon Wild $55,000 in attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

We also know that sometimes there aren’t the people to plan, and the bucks may not arrive at the right time in the right color to move forward.  Given all that, I thought this WaPo article was interesting..but extraordinarily predictable.

10. Fuel Treatments Held Up by Trump Admin.. WaPo 

Last year, the Trump administration delayed a $10 million grant that was supposed to help Minnesota thin out about 4,000 acres of dense, dry forest at high risk of burning. Most of that work never got started, according to five people familiar with the situation and a document reviewed by The Washington Post. And now, some of those areas are on fire.

We were shovel-ready,” said Aaron Kania, who was a U.S. Forest Service district ranger with the Superior National Forest for six years and a law enforcement ranger with the Bureau of Land Management for two decades before retiring last December. “Had that work been implemented, it would have been effective in stopping or slowing down these fires.”

And the WaPo seems not very careful with numbers…

In the following months, the agency would lose about one-third of its employees, including those who managed timber reviews and grant administration programs — critical components in getting wildfire mitigation projects like the Superior National Forest’s up and running.

The link goes to another WaPo story from earlier this month.

In 2024, there were 18,700 federal employees who could fight fires. Now there are a little over 17,000, according to the U.S. Forest Service and Interior Department. In a recent June report, the Government Accountability Office noted that the U.S. Forest Service’s workforce “decreased by about 20 percent in response to a February 2025 executive order for large-scale workforce reductions.”

I wish reporters would link to the section of the story with the numbers when they cite numbers.. I still don’t get the 1/3. If the FS lost the same 6K that they gained 2022-2024, then that would be 1/3 of 18K which is not the total. But maybe it’s just fire folks?

But that earlier story also quotes Colorado Governor Jared Polis:

In an interview Thursday, Governor Jared Polis (D) and several fire and public safety officials said that while Colorado may have its hands full right now, they are managing. It’s what could come next that worries them. Decades of falling behind on fuel treatments and climate challenges have made their forests tinder boxes, they said.

That’s “decades” of falling behind, not spring of 2025. Oh well, losing 1/3 is a lot, maybe someone can figure out where that number came from.

Wildfire Roundup II- PL5, European Wildfires and Climate, and “Absolutely Insane Six Weeks” at the Durango Airtanker Base

by

The U.S. Forest Service Airtanker Base in Durango. (Corey Robinson, Special to The Colorado Sun)

 

5. The Hotshot Wakeup called this a Moses Moment, as in Chief Schultz says “let my people go.”

Here’s THW’s  summary:

As the Nation remains at a National Preparedness Level 5, resources continue to be in short supply. With that, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz has sent the “Moses Letter” out to Deputy Chiefs, Regional Foresters, and Station Directors. This is an all-hands-on-deck letter, asking for everyone to “let my people go.”

In the letter, the Chief asks to make “all qualified, red-carded personnel available for fire assignments.” Also, for an influx of support staff, including contracting officers, land mobile radio and IT specialists, HR professionals, safety managers, and finance personnel.

In addition to those positions, the Chief asks for a surge of resource advisors, Burned Area Emergency Response team members, public information officers, and all other qualified or trainee overhead positions.

The Chief also addresses fatigue and risk management as we enter the busy month of August.

6.  The European Wildfires and Climate

Check out Roger Pielke, Jrs.’ piece here. Roger cites this 2025 modeling study. Lamet et al. ‘s findings probably won’t surprise anyone here.

Adapting to the escalating risk of wildfires necessitates a comprehensive approach that addresses the three fundamental components of risk: danger (also referred as hazard), exposure, and vulnerability. Mitigating the hazard involves decreasing the likelihood and potential severity of wildfire events. This can be achieved through public education campaigns that promote fire-safe behaviours among residents, tourists, and professionals. Fuel management practices, such as prescribed burning and mechanical thinning, have proven effective in reducing wildfire severity. Exposure can be curtailed by regulating the expansion of human settlements and infrastructure into fire-prone areas, particularly the wildland–urban interface (WUI). The WUI, where human development meets undeveloped wildland, has been identified as a zone of heightened wildfire risk. Efforts to limit development in these areas can reduce the number of structures and lives at risk. However, it is important to recognise that even without further expansion, existing exposure within the WUI remains substantial. Moreover, many peri-urban areas—often overlapping with the WUI—provide essential affordable housing, underscoring the need to balance wildfire risk reduction with broader social and economic considerations. Finally, reducing vulnerability entails enhancing the resilience of communities and systems to withstand and recover from wildfire events.

3.  Durango Airbase Story from the Colorado Sun

Great story and many photos for those of us less familiar with air operations. Photo above is from this story.

Lemmon recently provided air attack on small fires south of Durango.

He described what is referred to as an air attack stack. At the bottom of the stack, helicopters fly at 1,500 feet altitude, while airtankers sit at 2,500 feet. Air attack flies at 3,500 feet and keeps an eye on the entire aerial operation.

Air attack staff like Lemmon come from wildland firefighting backgrounds rather than aviation backgrounds, because air attack often strategizes with on-the-ground firefighters about next moves such as retardant drops.

“A good air attack is taking a lot of pressure off those firefighters on the ground,” Williams said. “He’s helping make decisions, recommendations to some sometimes very overwhelmed ground crew.”

On smaller fires, air attack can direct a tanker to drop retardant lines and quickly slow the initial spread of the fire, Lemmon said. On larger fires, air attack will consult with firefighters below to find the most strategic locations for drops.

While retardant helps stop flames from advancing across the landscape, water is useful in lighter fuel loads. For instance, planes recently scooped loads of water out of McPhee Reservoir to drop on the Ferris fire burning northwest of Dolores, Williams said.

 

 

On-the-Wilderness Ground Observations Across the West: Cindy Chojnacky

by
Screenshot from Cindy’s website
https://www.wildernessneed.org/  the website has much useful info for trip planning and on other Wilderness topics.

I thought a comment by Cindy Chojnacky was detailed and interesting enough to post separately.

Just a couple of observations first.. Cindy points out what her observations are in the Wildernesses.  It struck me how many of our disagreements can be framed as abstractions (Wilderness theory) vs. observations.

The second is that when a statute is a statute and agencies interpret it differently, is that a cultural artifact or based on some kind of logic? Does anyone actually remember how it came to be? Is there a utility, in this day and age for these differences? Or should we accept “whatever previous people wrote” as The Way it Should Always Be? Jon brought up the Forest Service Manual changes, and I plan to discuss those next week.

Not unrelated is the idea that if Wilderness was negotiated as a deal with then-current users, is it right to try to renegotiate after the deal is done? How much longer after the deal is done?  Does it make more sense to work with those users and somehow make it worth their while to stop or change practices, rather than work for re-legislating?

Anyway, here are Cindy’s on-the-Wilderness-ground observations:

Having backpacked through 103 wilderness areas over the past 13 years, David and I resonated with Claire K. Thompson’s HCN post from trail crew perspective on need for targeted chainsaw use in some wilderness areas to address twin problems of climate change related trail damage and lessening trail staffing/ budgets. From field perspective she argued eloquently on 3 points we have raised many times (1) targeted use of chainsaws is needed to stop losing trail access, (2) National Park Service interprets the clause in Wilderness Act Section 4 (c ) on prohibiting motorized equipment in wilderness areas “except as necessary to meet minimum requirements for administration of the area” that clearing trails IS a minimum requirement and allows wilderness trail crews to use chainsaws (and Forest Service should do likewise), and (3) the entire purpose for establishing wilderness, mentioned 3 times in the Act, is providing for “visitor use and enjoyment” which cannot happen if wilderness visitors cannot access wilderness. (We noted Park Service chainsaw use in Daniel J. Evans Wilderness/ Olympic National Park where giant red cedar are so huge, chainsaws are essential to cut down logs 6-8 feet in diameter). Our fourth point is that fire crews often use chainsaws in wilderness (recently saw a new helipad cleared in the Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness during Forsyth Fire of 2025 with large old growth Douglas fir cut into neat rounds) and have argued that forest management should be able to use same exemption to “minimum tool” limits used during the fire for post-fire trail restoration. Fire crew practice of cutting every hazard tree along a fire line (often a wilderness trail) could be extended so that dead trees bound to fall within next 10 years could be dealt with immediately after the fire instead of presenting 10 years of trail maintenance challenge) as we have observed in Gila and other wilderness areas. Losing access to more obscure wilderness just channels more people into the heavily used areas with better trail maintenance.

We have been amused by Wilderness Watch’s impassioned fight to “save” the Frank Church RONR Wilderness from limited use of chainsaws by outfitters. We hiked through the Frank last summer from Marsh Creek to Poet Creek Campground (on boundary of Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness), passing through about 30 burn scars (including many reburned two or three times). We saw many people on wilderness boundaries—floating the Main and Middle forks of the Salmon River, on inholdings on the rivers, flying in to numerous airstrips grandfathered into the Frank’s enabling act, and driving the Magruder Corridor Road on the boundary of Frank and Selby. We saw 8 backpackers in the wilderness during our entire trek in the Frank, all within a day’s hike of a trailhead. We hiked 54 miles on the Magruder (and 26 on other roads) having been told that parallel trails in Frank and Selway were unusable. Even trails that had been recently cleared by non-profit or Forest Service crews often were a maze of down logs and brush—like beautiful frustrating Bargamin Creek heading from Main Salmon to Magruder; the last 13 rather mellow miles took 13 hours to the road. We suspect that WW and the folks who earnestly pass on its talking points don’t hike wilderness except the overused ones like Sawtooth, John Muir and Maroon Bells (just finished a trek there, encountering about 150-200 people near West Maroon Pass!).

In the Sawtooth Wilderness, a beautiful loop of the Big and Little Queens rivers near Atlanta, Idaho is almost unusable because a section of Little Queens through Johnson Creek has a mile of post-fire ceanothus higher than your head. Burned in the Idaho City Complex Fire of 1992, the basin was never cleared and now would require battery brush cutters, not hand tools, to clear.

Preventing chainsaw use seems to be the Holy Grail of wilderness protection for Wilderness Watch. We’d like to see WW use its litigation savvy and political muscle to go after a much more damaging special interest wilderness use that benefits a few private interests, does nothing for public enjoyment and access and does tremendous damage to the wilderness resource: public lands grazing. We were appalled to see 30-40 cows trashing a beautiful meadow on Capitol Creek in the Maroon Bells—a popular entrance from Snowmass for dozens of peak baggers, trail runners and hikers. But the cattle industry has much support in Congress. Promoting the enticing but poorly understood idea of “wilderness purity” and harassing Forest Service management may be less controversial way to engage public outrage and fulfill business model to continue donor funding.

On the website, Cindy has an interesting post with great photos called “Most Visitors on Boundaries of Wilderness.”

 

Wildfire-Related Roundup.I. Wildfire Tech, Water and Retardant- Both Bad, and More Burnt Offsets

by

 

6 European aircraft are currently bolstering firefighting resources in France

1. I hope someone can look into this.. Phil Hardy on X claims that the USDA and USFWS interpret FITARA differently:

USDA has basically shut down fire tech due to an extremely restricted interpretation of what IT and software is, versus supplying a professional service.

So I looked at FITARA on Google AI  and it was clearly above my knowledge capacity. Anyone who knows about this or could look into it more.

2. Thanks to Nick Smith for this one. If you look at the retardant being used in Europe in Phil’s X posts, it might remind you of the FSEEE retardant court case, which came back to federal court Tuesday. Of course, long-time TSW associate Andy Stahl has retired, but the case goes on, and now I have no one to ask about the details. I remember asking “why just the FS and not other agencies?” And I got a good answer but can’t remember. Maybe others do?

Remember when Andy was quoted as saying..

“I think this most recently filed case is likely the one that will really force the government to come to grips with both admitting the retardant doesn’t make any difference in the real world,” he said, “and returning to the natural, God-given way of fighting fires: water.”

3. OK, if we circle around, if retardant is bad, water is good, right? Except Bridger, which uses water primarily in its Scoopers, was run by Senator Sheehy (who has got to be bad, in some circles, because he’s a Republican, plus in the Senate). So water must be bad too (as well as private aviation, on the whole, being questionable). Back to the silly AP news story.. suppression is bad compared to monitoring and confine and contain, suppression with water is bad, suppression with retardant is bad, and so on. The wildfire agencies seem to be between a political rock and a judicial hard place.  This combo of suppression is bad, suppression tools are bad (and don’t work) doesn’t really fit with our lived experience. Plus “the whole world is burning up” and “we shouldn’t be using water, retardant nor private aviation” seem a bit contradictory to me.

4. Zeke Lunder on The Lookout brings us up- to-date (with maps) reporting on some western wildfires and various carbon projects, plus these comments.

The costs of purchasing these offsets have been passed on to anybody who uses services from these gas, utility and manufacturing companies. And now the supposed climate benefits of this tax have been turned to ash and CO2. The real winners in the whole process are the consultants who have billed millions of staff hours devising the sketchy math and inventory methods that justify paying someone to let nature run its course and grow vegetation – something that is going to happen whether Chevron pays a forest landowner to do something or not. And the tribes have made a lot of money, too, but that can’t replace the forests that have burnt up.

 

Is USDA Hugging the Bear?

by

1. Last week I was told that contracting folks were moving to a team based at USDA to work for all agencies. This does not apply to emergency (wildfire) procurement folks. I sent an inquiry to FS communications, which was promptly answered and forwarded to USDA comms.. I haven’t heard from them yet. Kudos to FS comms for quickness of response! Here are my questions.

It has come to my attention that Forest Service non-emergency contracting folks are being moved to USDA, where they will be part of a service center for all USDA agencies.
Is this true, do you have anything to add?
Are there other business services that will be moved to that kind of USDA-wide structure? Grants and agreement, HR, IT ??? (later I added FOIA)

What is the rationale, and is there an overall organizational plan that can be shared with the public?

If readers know more about this, please add in the comments.
It could be that the Secretary is imbedding the FS in USDA, to make it more difficult for forces to try to strip the FS (whole or in parts) from USDA and put it in Interior.

2. Don Amador has a piece on his blog about combining USDA agencies into one office in Redding, California. Here are some excerpts, and that is his photo above:

When I recently visited the new USDA Service Center in Redding, California, I found myself reflecting on just how much the U.S. Forest Service has evolved over the past century.

Located in what many longtime Northern California residents still think of as the Shasta-Trinity National Forest Supervisor’s Office, the building today serves a much broader purpose. Along with the headquarters for the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, it houses the Pacific Southwest Research Station, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Farm Service Agency (FSA), Rural Development, and other USDA programs under one roof.

Rather than serving as the headquarters of a single National Forest, these facilities function as integrated USDA campuses where multiple agencies work side by side. The emphasis is less on organizational boundaries and more on delivering a range of services to rural communities, landowners, agricultural producers, conservation partners, researchers, and public land users.

It is a noticeable evolution from an agency structure rooted in the 1930s toward a model that better reflects twenty-first century technology, community engagement, and collaboration.

Don’s piece got me to thinking about how it may well make more sense to combine offices with other USDA agencies, compared to with BLM. Although the FS and BLM share similar missions, Interior does not have the kind of facilities nor outreach to citizens that USDA does across the country.

If you go back to some of the rhetoric around moving the FS to Interior (from the D side), it would be because Interior is full of “conservation” agencies.  Actually, it looks like the BLM goes back and forth from minerals folks to environmental NGOs.. neither being particularly close to rural (or even urban, as in urban and community forestry) people and communities across the country and their concerns.

It wasn’t until I worked on the Fund for Rural America that I began to appreciate the many programs within USDA.  Because I graduated from a land grant institution, I was aware of Extension, Master Gardeners, and of course NRCS (our associate chief when I was in RPA, Dave Unger, came from there, and many USDA reorgs had the FS and NRCS sharing an undersecretary) and so on, but not so much FSA and Rural Development. Even the wood waste problem (e.g. paywalled San Fran Chron op ed) seems more related to capacities of USDA and the Forest Service, rather than, say, USGS. Although when we had the bark beetle outbreak in Colorado, DOE came with some ideas for wood waste to energy.

Long story short.. I guess these are all arguments for the FS (whole) staying with USDA.  Still, I don’t know how common the Service Center idea is.. probably depends on lease terms and other factors. Probably someone out there knows..

HCN: ” A ban on chainsaws in wilderness is performative, not practical”

by

Essay from High Country News. An experienced trail crew leader argues that, in today’s forests, the rigidity of the regulation buries what it’s designed to protect.

“As we sawed through yet another fire-scarred fir that had fallen across a backcountry trail, my trail crew and I would sometimes hear a hiker, pause our work and brace for the inevitable question: “What, they don’t let you use chainsaws?” ”

IMHO, the use of chainsaws would be less intrusive than the constant sounds of aircraft, which one hears on or off trails, in meadows, on the shores of remote lakes, etc.

Why Are Wildfire Strategies Controversial For Feds, But Not States? Mapping State-o-Phobia

by

 

Firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-US-nearly-year-round-Ars-Technica. Screenshot of this video.

I was reflecting on the AP story from earlier this week, and it occurred to me that sometimes issues are raised like “full suppression is a problem”,  or even “private aviation is a problem” by national media, when it appears that in some cases, states don’t seem to have the same ideological battles. Why is that?

Remember this from the AP story?

But critics say the administration is trying to fix something that isn’t broken: The four agencies the firefighters were drawn from — the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and National Park Service — have a record of extinguishing 98% of the fires they handle.

Just think if that same concept were applied at the state land local level.  LA would be off the hook for improving their wildfire readiness, because after all, the LA Fires were ultimately extinguished!   States seem to be more pragmatic and perhaps less ideological. Plus there’s the whole “laboratory of democracy” thing, compared to nationally we need to pick one option for the country.  Let’s look at a couple of tweets from CAL FIRE.  for example.

Keeping fires small.  BAU for the State and highly ideologically questionable for the Feds.

And the importance of air resources…

Of course, it’s not clear if these are contract or CAL FIRE owned aircraft. It seems to me, though,  that if you want to make the case that contract air resources is a potentially grafty way to go, then you would have to go much further back in history than the current Admin.

The current wildfire partnerships with States, for me, raises the question  “why is it so worrisome if Feds work with States better on fuels management (i.e., forest vegetation) when they already work in an integrated way on wildfire?” As Cissel said in his post yesterday, even in Oregon wildfire has more impact on vegetation than any other activity.  States also have responsibility for regulating under the Clean Air Act, with which both prescribed and wildfire have a nexus. We even have stable  Roadless Rules done with State/Federal cooperation.  If we look at state management of endangered species that also seems to evoke state-o-phobia in some.

But as PERC says:

“under the proposed rule the states are provided a path to managing those areas that exceed local recovery objectives, while the grizzly remains federally listed.”

Why wouldn’t we trust states with forests and wildlife when we obviously do with air and wildfire?

And Governor Polis, in Colorado (another D-led state) vouches for cattle and goats in their role in fuel reduction.

 

 

Here are people in states agreeing on (some) things.  And yet, when federal lands enter the picture, there are massive abstract ideological battles. Remember “Cattle-free by 93?”

Let’s go back to California

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as CAL FIRE, ran its own field test involving five autonomous drones that worked together to deploy between 500 and 1,000 gallons of foam combined for suppressing fires on July 15, according to the TV station KPMH. The demonstration was organized with the help of the nonprofit FireWERX and the California-based company Seneca, which is making the drones commercially available starting in 2026.

*************

CAL FIRE has not signed up any firefighting drones just yet, but it represents another large potential customer. The California fire agency already operates the world’s largest aerial firefighting fleet with more than 70 crewed fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, along with using AI-powered camera networks and supporting development of the FireSat constellation designed to spot wildfires from space even faster.

At this rate of innovation, it won’t be long before initial attack becomes more reliable and with less or no risk to firefighters. The conversation may change then to “where and when, and under what conditions, should fire be prescribed?”

The question remains, though, why and where is state-o-phobia a thing?