On Labor Day, 2020, Oregon witnessed the start of the most destructive wildfire season in recent history, burning nearly one million acres across public and private forest lands in less than a week. Now that the smoke has cleared, our forest sector is pivoting its focus to the future – restoration and regeneration of Oregon’s…
The Mt. Hood National Forest provides clean water, recreation, forest products, and wildlife to the region. But these values are at risk from large and severe fires. Nearly 200,000 acres of the Mt. Hood National Forest have burned since last year- threatening communities, water supplies and public health. We are also losing access. The US…
In a recent letter to congressional leadership, dozens of scientists urged policymakers to support legislative proposals recognizing forest management and wood utilization as part of the solution to climate change. Their research found wood and wood products, when appropriately deployed, can reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in the built environment, transportation, and manufacturing sectors, “with…
The following is an informational release from the Klamath National Forest and Cal Fire. In the afternoon of July 18, 2020, two fires were reported within the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) Siskiyou Unit’s direct fire protection area in the area of Hawkinsville/Humbug, just north of Yreka, California. Weather conditions were…
Annual land area burned by severe wildfires in the western United States has grown eight times larger in less than four decades. Roughly 210,000 acres burned in 2017, up from 26,000 acres in 1985, in high severity fires that kill more than 95 percent of trees in their path, according to a new study by the U.S.…
This year over 3.8 million acres have burned on U.S. Forest Service-protected lands, an area larger than the size of Connecticut. There have been 6,046 fires on these lands, which is just 13 percent of the 46,466 fires started in 2020. Yet they account for 45 percent of the total acres burned. Records continue…
From the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station To date in 2020, 1,217 wildfires have burned 1,473,522 million acres of National Forest System lands in California; 8,486 wildfires have burned over 4 million acres across all jurisdictions in California. This current fire activity comes after forests in the region experienced an extreme drought accompanied…
Rachel Lee Hall contributed the following article to our web site. She previously contributed her Forest Under Stress research here, her research on Reverse of Sequestration and Forest Under Stress (RSFUS) here, and research on Mega Drought Southern Oregon- Spring 2020 Forest Under Stress (FUS) here. The ecological disaster arrived on time. The disturbance in…
The tragic devastation in California and Oregon has ignited a national debate over the causes and solutions to wildfire. Framing the issue as an “either/or” choice between climate change and forest management does a disservice to very complex issues. The real question is: what can we do now? There are many factors determining the growth…
The following information is from Quartz: The sprawling wildfires in California and Oregon are producing record amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, according to satellite data. In both states, wildfire emissions in 2020 have already surpassed those typically released by their power sectors over the course of an entire year. In California, cumulative CO2 emissions from wildfires…