Forest plans different approach to salvage logging
Supervisors from Plumas County and the Plumas National Forest have reached an understanding when it comes to recovering damaged timber from September’s Moonlight Fire.
The Forest Supervisor Alice Carlton was before the Plumas County Board of Supervisors Dec. 18 to update them on salvage and restoration on the Moonlight and Antelope fires, Secure Rural Schools legislation and the off-highway vehicle route-designation status.
While county supervisors were interested in all three issues, it was the timber salvage information they were particularly keen to discuss.
Although forest representatives are still crafting their approach to get approval to log the majority of timber involved in this year’s two major wildfires, approval has been gained for four roadside timber sales for hazard trees through a streamlined approach.
These initial projects are the simplest to get through the federal approval process. By following the National Environmental Protection Act process, the sales are planned requiring less documentation and with fewer regulations to follow than traditional sales… [more]
by bear bait
Hear! Hear! I get really confused reading numbers concerned with the board foot measure of timber, and wonder sometimes if I am not being given cubic foot numbers instead. Just give me good ole Scribner Decimal C, and I can finger it all out. I can deal with Westside-Eastside scaling and measurement.
But, we do live in an era where expertise and lingo of the woods is being lost with the last generation. I can remember my mother saying when something was going good, like Oregon State was coming back and winning a basketball game, “Now we’re logging!!” Or when someone asked if they should pursue some goal or process and were told “Go right ahead on ‘er.” When you were running to get clear of the lines, it was “Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.” So it is probably just generational ignorance that cub reporters don’t know the difference between 3 loads of logs (15mbf) from a significant timber sale of 15 million board feet (15mmbf), which would result in 3000 loads of logs. Quite a difference, and no evidence that the author of this story had a clue.
This article is interesting but it has two flaws.
First, the units are squirrelly. A thousand board feet are abbreviated ‘mbf’. A million board feet are ‘mmbf’ (2 m’s). The article gets those units confused. For a rule-of-thumb, a single log truck load is 4 to 5 mbf, and a single acre at harvest produces 20 to 40 mbf, or about 5 to 10 truckloads.
Second, the article confuses forest restoration with salvage logging and other post-fire treatments. Forest restoration is something done to green forests before they burn. Forest recovery is post-fire action. Not the same things!!!
Words mean things, and so do abbreviated units of measure. We all need to speak the same language in order to understand one another.