The Smokey Wire : National Forest News and Views

This is from an article in The Conversation yesterday, March 6: “The West’s iconic forests are increasingly struggling to recover from wildfires – altering how fires burn could boost their chances.”

Wildfires and severe drought are killing trees at an alarming rate across the West, and forests are struggling to recover as the planet warms. However, new research shows there are ways to improve forests’ chances of recovery – by altering how wildfires burn.

In a new study, we teamed up with over 50 other fire ecologists to examine how forests have recovered – or haven’t – in over 10,000 locations after 334 wildfires.

Together, these sites offer an unprecedented look at how forests respond to wildfires and global warming.

Our results are sobering. We found that conifer tree seedlings, such as Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine, are increasingly stressed by high temperatures and dry conditions in sites recovering from wildfires. In some sites, our team didn’t find any seedlings at all. That’s worrying, because whether forests recover after a wildfire depends in large part on whether new seedlings can establish themselves and grow.

However, our team also found that if wildfires burn less intensely, forests will have a better shot at regrowing. Our study, published March 6, 2023, highlights how proactive efforts that modify how wildfires burn can help buffer seedlings from some of the biggest stressors of global warming.

The PNAS paper is open-access:

“Reduced fire severity offers near-term buffer to climate-driven declines in conifer resilience across the western United States”

• National Scenic River easement

State court decision in McGibney v. Missouri Department of Natural Resources (Missouri Court of Appeals)

The Forest Service holds a conservation easement near the Mark Twain National Forest along the Eleven Point River where it has been designated a Scenic River under the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.  In a lawsuit by private owners of other property also subject to the easement, the state appeals court reversed a district court opinion, and held that the purchase of the eased property by the DNR was consistent with DNR’s statutory authority to acquire new lands for park purposes, even without public access to the 625 acres subject to the easement.  That is because the public could enjoy views of the river and the eased land from other areas of the park.  (The Forest Service was not a party to this case, but there’s “more United States Forest Service land than any county in the state of Missouri;” additional background on the controversy may be found here.)

• Recreation.gov fees

New lawsuit:  Wilson v. Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. (E.D. Va.)

On February 11, a proposed class-action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia, and it asks the court to order Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., which operates the Recreation.gov site providing access to federal lands, to refund to consumers processing, lottery, and cancellation fees.  The main issue is whether these “junk” fees are allowed under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA).

• Nevada geothermal plant v. Dixie Valley toad

Stay granted in The Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe v. U. S. Department of the Interior (D. Nev.)

On February 14, the district court agreed with the BLM and granted a stay in the litigation because the results of reinitiating ESA consultation on a modified proposal for a geothermal development, reducing its size from 60 MW to 12 MW, would be “essential to Plaintiffs’ claims” related to the newly listed Dixie Valley toad.  (We’ve been following this case, most recently here.)

• Glenwood Springs gravel pit

State court decision

On February 16, the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld a 2019 notice of violation issued by Garfield County against the operator of a gravel pit on BLM land just above the city of Glenwood Springs.  The question was whether the mine operations were under state or county jurisdiction.  The BLM is separately considering allowing the mine to expand.

• Thacker Pass lithium mine

New lawsuit

On February 16, a week after the federal district court largely upheld BLM’s decision to permit Lithium America’s Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada, three Native American tribes filed a new lawsuit. The tribes are alleging BLM withheld information from the Nevada State Historic Office, “and lied about the extent of tribal consultation in order to secure legally required concurrence about historic properties” at Thacker Pass.  Earlier in Februrary, The Reno Sparks Indian Colony and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe submitted an application to list both the 1865 massacre site and the whole of Thacker Pass, which tribes are calling the “Thacker Pass Traditional Cultural District,” under the National Register of Historic Places.

Court decision

On March 1, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block construction of the mine while it considers an appeal of the district court decision, after the district court also refused to grant an injunction pending appeal.  (This is a continuation of the ongoing lawsuit, discussed here; not the new lawsuit described above.)

A trailer for a documentary on this controversy may be viewed here. (The full documentary may also be available from this site, but I didn’t request it.)

• Ozark NF Roberts Gap project

New lawsuit: Buffalo River Watershed Alliance v. U. S. Forest Service (W.D. Ark.)

On February 21, filed a complaint alleging that the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest violated NEPA in making its decision on the Roberts Gap Project, a prescribed burn, logging, and chemical herbicide treatment within the Buffalo River watershed.  Eighty-six percent of the project area allegedly contains trees 70 years old or more, and habitat for the endangered Indiana bat.  (The summary contains a link to the complaint.)

• New Mexico feral cattle

New lawsuit/decision:  New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association v. U. S. Forest Service (D. N.M)

On February 21, this association, the Humane Farming Association, the Spur Lake Cattle Company and two individuals sued the Forest Service and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service over their plans to aerially shoot an estimated 150 feral cattle in the Gila Wilderness Area on the Gila National Forest.  They alleged failure to give adequate notice, lack of statutory authority, improper procedures for trespassing cattle and failure to prepare an EA or EIS under NEPA.  On the next day, the district court denied a request for a temporary restraining order (the link above is to that opinion).  More background is here.

• Minnesota lynx trapping

Court decision in Center for Biological Diversity v. Strommen (D. Minn)

On February 21, the district court approved a consent decree between the parties to enforce a prior court decision by changing Canada lynx trapping regulations, including prohibiting snares, for the Lynx Management Zone in northeastern Minnesota (including the Superior National Forest).  The agreement was opposed by intervenor trapper associations.  Plaintiff’s news release is here.

• Office of Management and Budget FOIA

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. Office of Management and Budget (D. D.C.)

On February 21, the Center sued OMB and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain agency records regarding compliance with the Endangered Species Act’s legal obligation in §7(a)(1) that all federal agencies “shall utilize their authorities” to carry out “programs for the conservation of endangered species and threatened species.”  This relates to their roles in delaying ESA protections for species (which the Center has frequently litigated), and in this case red knots (a coastal shorebird).  (The news release includes a link to the complaint.)

• Colorado wolves

Notice of intent to sue

On February 22, the Center for Biological Diversity notified the Forest Service that it would be sued for violating the same §7(a)(1) of the Endangered Species Act regarding gray wolves, which are protected by the ESA in Colorado, but not in Wyoming.  They are asking the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest to ban wolf hunting and trapping on the Forest in both states.  This is in response to pioneering wolves in Colorado apparently being shot by Wyoming hunters.

• BLM rock “art”

An editorial mocked an investigation by BLM into movement of rocks on BLM desert land to form a yin and yang sign sitting at one vertex of a 50 foot triangle, with a second vertex containing a smiling face with a unique hat.

Kirsten Cannon, the spokesperson for BLM’s Southern Nevada District, huffed, “Permits are issued for land art such as this,” voicing concern about protecting the environment. She added, “Land art can increase visitation to an area, so proper site location and a permit are important.”

Forest Service dumps are for refuse disposal, not target shooting.

 Some of the challenges of my Toiyabe National Forest fire prevention guard job had nothing at all to do with wildfire prevention. Some had to do with the fact I was often the only public servant around to handle an emergency—with that sometimes gray area between assigned duty and moral obligation on what might be termed a “now or never” basis.

Once, on my way to the busy Twin Lakes recreation area, I detoured to check the Forest Service dump I’d burned a few days before. Suddenly, I heard gunshots, just as the Lone Ranger and Tonto once did at the beginning of almost every episode. What I saw as I arrived at the dump scared me.

A big, beefy, fortyish man, standing next to a late model Cadillac sedan, was firing a high-powered rifle—not at me, but at a row of cans and bottles on an earthen berm at the opposite end of the dump. He didn’t, I quickly decided, know what lay beyond the low ridge toward which he was firing and over which his bullets could fly. And he apparently didn’t know that Mono County didn’t allow shooting in the area. Somebody had to tell him before it might be too late.

“Good Morning, sir,” I managed as I climbed out of the cab of my patrol rig.

He nodded and smiled.

“What are you shooting?” followed, though his targets were obvious.

“Just plinkin’ at cans and bottles.”

“Sir, do you know what’s over that hill about a mile?” I asked, pointing toward the southeast—the same direction he’d been shooting.

“Just sagebrush, I guess. That’s all I can see from here.”

“No, sir. The Hunewill Guest Ranch is over there. I’d guess bullets from that rifle could reach there from here.”

“Too many dudes around anyway, right?” he smirked, making light of my concern.

Deciding another appeal to common sense wouldn’t hack it, I invoked the law. There was, I told him, a Mono County ordinance that prohibited shooting within the Twin Lakes basin.

“Oh, yeah? Well, we wouldn’t want to do anything illegal, would we? Guess we’ll just go shoot somewhere else.”

And with that he got into his Cadillac and drove away. I was relieved to see him gone. A few minutes later, after my heart stopped pounding, I radioed a report of the incident to the ranger station. I never saw him again, never heard anything about him.

But, most important, nobody had been hurt.

Adapted from the 2018 third edition of Toiyabe Patrol, the writer’s memoir of five U.S. Forest Service summers on the Toiyabe National Forest in the 1960s.

Thanks to Mike Archer for this link in today’s Wildfire News of the Day email (subscribe here). It’s a great Women’s History Month story….

(5) The next article provides a thumbnail sketch of a woman who became the first female pilot with U.S. Forest Service, flying lead planes battling wildfires across the West while also raising a family, one of whom became a commercial airline pilot.

Mary Barr Fought Expectations as First Female Forest Service Air Boss https://adventure-journal.com/blogs/news/mary-barr-fought-fires-and-expectations-as-first-woman-forest-service-air-boss

I posted a part of this column in another thread. Here’s the entire article, with links. It’s from the February 2023 edition of The Mountain Times, a community newspaper in my area. I write a monthly column, The Woodsman.

FWIW, California is in the midst of a “pinemaggedon.”

“Firmageddon” and Oregon Forest Health

By Steve Wilent

For newspaper, magazine, or blog editors trying to come up with attention-grabbing headlines (as all editors do) for a story about forest health (boring!), using the word “Firmageddon” would be a slam dunk. The Oregonian used the term in a November 25, 2022, article, “Record number of firs dying in Oregon, Washington in what experts call ‘Firmageddon.’” Other newspapers far and wide ran similar headlines, including Esquire, Wired, and the US edition of the British newspaper, The Guardian.

Firmageddon, a term based on “armageddon,” was coined by researchers who had compiled data cleaned from aerial surveys of forest conditions in Oregon and Washington. According to The Oregonian, the researchers found that “Fir trees in Oregon and Washington died in record-breaking numbers in 2022,” and it was “the largest die-off ever recorded for fir trees in the two states.”

Note that the die-off of firs does not include Douglas-fir, the most common tree in our area, but so-called “true fir” species grand fir and noble fir, which are common in the northern Cascades, as well as white fir, Shasta fir, and red fir, which are common in southern Oregon. Douglas-fir is not a true fir.

In assessing the results of aerial surveys covering about 25 million acres in Oregon, the researchers found that “The fir mortality is widespread and quite severe in some locations. Fir mortality has been detected across Oregon and Washington, but the elevated and more severe fir mortality was observed across the Ochoco, Malheur, Fremont, and Winema National Forests from Central Oregon to the California border. More than 1.2 million acres have been impacted with fir mortality across the Pacific Northwest, with ~1.1 million of those acres all being recorded in Oregon. Nearly double the acres impacted compared to all the previous year’s data on fir mortality in Oregon.”

The results of the surveys are summarized in “Forest Health Highlights in Oregon – 2021,” from the Oregon Department of Forestry and the US Forest Service (download it at tinyurl.com/3cmna6hc). The US Forest offers an informative “story map” that looks at data from Oregon and Washington (tinyurl.com/ywy76erh).

Trees die in our forests every year due to a variety of natural causes, such as wildfire, insect attacks, and diseases. In recent years, many trees have been weakened by drought stress, which reduces their ability to defend themselves against insects and diseases. Heat stress, such as during the unusual “heat dome” we all suffered through in 2021, also weakens trees. The graph accompanying this article shows that tree deaths from abiotic factors—drought and heat stress (shown in blue)—were far greater in 2021 than in previous years. This is not surprising, as much of Oregon has seen drought conditions in recent years, “most heavily across Oregon from the center of Oregon around the Ochoco Mountains to the California border,” according to the report.

To me, as a forester, the high mortality in true firs isn’t surprising. In many areas, especially in eastern and southwestern Oregon, true firs have “invaded” forests that had previously been dominated by large, old ponderosa pines and Douglas-firs. In the past, relatively frequent, low-intensity fires killed most of the young true firs before they could become big enough to compete with the larger, older trees. Such fires were caused by lightning or were intentionally lit by Native Americans for centuries before European settlers moved in. Today, the invading true firs have become large enough to compete with larger trees for water and nutrients, and most or all trees in these overcrowded forests are stressed, leaving them more susceptible to insects, diseases, drought, heat waves, and especially wildfire.

The US Forest Service, the Oregon Department of Forestry, private landowners, and other forest managers have worked for many years to reintroduce low-intensity fire—prescribed fire that is beneficial in ways similar to the fires lit by Native Americans. With so many young trees and dead/down woody debris in these forests, wildfires that otherwise would have been low intensity, leaving the largest trees unscathed, often become high-intensity fires that kill many or all of the large trees. Using prescribed fire in these areas can help clear out the invading firs, but only if the amount of available fuel is reduced beforehand through mechanical or hand thinning.

Oregon Forest Facts

The “Forest Health Highlights” report makes for interesting reading for foresters and others who are concerned about die-offs in our forests. For a more general look at forests, see “Oregon Forest Facts, 2023-24 Edition,” from the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, or OFRI (a free download at tinyurl.com/ya9w6hwu. Teachers, take note: OFRI will mail you hard copies at co cost).

This 20-page booklet is packed with information. For example:

• Nearly half of Oregon is forestland. Oregon forests vary by species composition and ownership. There are more than 30 distinct forest types, but Douglas-fir dominates in western Oregon, ponderosa pine in eastern Oregon, and mixed conifers in southwest Oregon. In terms of ownership, the federal government manages 61% of Oregon forests; private owners manage 34%; state and county governments manage 4%; and Native American tribes manage 2%.
• Timber harvest levels from public and private forestlands over the past 20 years have remained relatively stable, although the Great Recession (2007-09) and the collapse of the housing market brought a severe contraction in the U.S. demand for lumber. Consequently, Oregon’s timber harvest reached a modern-era low in 2009, the smallest harvest since the Great Depression in 1934. By 2013, the harvest had rebounded to roughly pre-recession levels.
• Oregon has led the nation for many years in producing softwood lumber and plywood typically used for homebuilding. Oregon’s lumber output of 6.1 billion board feet in 2021 accounted for about 16.5% of total U.S. production, while Oregon plywood mills accounted for about 28% of total U.S. plywood production in 2021. 

Oregon also leads the nation in the number of plants that manufacture engineered wood products such as cross-laminated timber (CLT), glue-laminated timber (glulam), and mass plywood panels (MPP). MPP? Think plywood, but huge: Up to 48 feet long, 10 feet wide, and a foot thick. The only MPP manufacturer in the world, so far, is Freres Engineered Wood, in Lyons, Oregon.

Have a question about the trees and plants in our forests? Want to know how much of Oregon is forested now compared to, say, in 1600? Let me know. Email: [email protected]