Oregon is now beginning this year’s fire season, and southwest Oregon will likely be inundated with days and weeks of deadly smoke. It’s been happening most summers sometime from June until October since 1987. For the first 40 years of my life, we didn’t have a fire season. We had wood heat, field burns, wigwam…
Active forest management plays a crucial role in protecting clean water supplies, particularly in regions vulnerable to wildfires and water scarcity, such as Arizona and California. For decades, passive management across the west has contributed to unnaturally thick forests that increase severe wildfire risks and impact water availability. Wildfire Risks in Overgrown Forests In thick…
Editors note: Kyle Johnson is a forester with the Bureau of Land Management’s Missoula Field Office. Mr. Johnson is not affiliated with Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities but gave us permission to share his message. Just over a year ago, a group of us from the BLM toured the Roseburg Forest Product (RFP) Missoula Composites facility.…
President Joe Biden recently signed an executive order adding 105,919 acres of National Forest System land to the San Gabriel National Monument. According to a statement by the White House, the lands added to the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument “contain spectacular cultural, geological, and ecological resources. A diversity of animals, birds, reptiles, and other…
Legacy often provides a strong sense of purpose when comes to running the family business. For Sean Smith and many others who work in the woods and the mills, you honor your heritage by doing business the right way, treating your people well, and staying true to the community. Enjoy the eighth episode in our…
Editors note: Kyle Johnson is a forester with the Bureau of Land Management’s Missoula Field Office. Mr. Johnson is not affiliated with Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities but gave us permission to share his message. It seems like the topic everyone is talking about these days: the closures of Pyramid Mountain Lumber in Seeley Lake, MT,…
From 2020 to 2021, the Castle and Windy Fires in California combined to burn 154,000 acres of National Forest System lands (excluding designated Wilderness areas). Both fires caused extensive deforestation. Half of the acres burned in the Castle Fire alone resulted in 100 percent tree mortality, and notably, it burned through ten giant sequoia groves.…
Episode 5 of Rick Dancer’s Truth About Timber Series: Rick visits the Oregon Logging Conference, the largest gathering of forest professionals in the country. Hear from a school teacher who is educating her students about modern technology and opportunities in the woods. The Chief of the U.S. Forest Service hears first hand what those in…
“Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.” – Mark Twain This comes to mind when considering the reaction by anti-forestry groups (and some in the news media) to the Biden Administration’s new old growth policy, which we covered here. “Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday announced a new proposal aimed at…
In December, the Biden Administration announced its long-awaited policy to conserve old growth forests on lands managed by the federal government. The policy caps a nearly two-year process after Biden signed his Earth Day executive order in 2022, including defining, inventorying and assessing the greatest threats to the nation’s old growth. The primary threats to…