SOS Forests

Half of All Oregon GHG Emissions Come From Forest Fires

Half of all Oregon greenhouse gas emissions in 2007 came from forest fires. This information was revealed Thursday, May 15, at a Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) meeting in Portland.

The meeting was a public hearing held to gather comments regarding Governor Kulongoski’s proposed Greenhouse Gas Mandatory Reporting Rules now under consideration by the Environmental Quality Commission (EQC), the board that oversees the DEQ.

The DEQ began the meeting by presenting a pie chart and a graph that indicated total GHG emissions in 2005 were 62 million tons (U.S.). The pie chart broke those emissions down by the following sectors: Transportation (34%), Waste (3%), Residential (17%), Commercial (14%), Industrial (25%), and Agriculture (14%). No forest sector was listed.

Then Mike Dubrasich, Executive Director of the Western Institute for Study of the Environment headquartered in Lebanon, OR, presented an analysis of GHG emissions from forest fires. According to Mr. Dubrasich (that’s me), in 2007 approximately 56 teragrams of GHG’s (principally CO2) were emitted by the 750,000 mostly forested acres burned last year in the state. One teragram equals 1.1023 millions tons (U.S.), so after conversion 61.7 million tons of GHGs are estimated to have been released by fires.

Mr. Dubrasich (me) told the DEQ, “You are missing an entire pie!”

My prepared remarks are [here]. Before I went to the meeting, I had no idea how much GHGs were (allegedly) emitted in Oregon. I based my calculations on reported carbon quantities for Oregon forests and reported combustion factors:

Forest fires throughout the U.S. burn in a variety of forest habitats, many of which have much lower biomass densities than Oregon forests. In Oregon our forests have significantly more above-ground biomass than the U.S. average, and range from 100 to 700 Mg/ha. A reasonable, conservative estimate of the carbon content of average above-ground biomass for Oregon forested environments is 200 Mg carbon (C)/ha.

Forest fires do not volatilize all above-ground biomass. The combustion factor can range from 10 to 80 percent. For the calculation below we use 25 percent, a reasonable, conservative average.

Much to my surprise, and to the others in attendance, my estimated forest fire emissions were as large as all other estimated GHG emissions combined.

I also calculated the “passenger car equivalents” as a comparative. A passenger car driven all year emits about 5 megagrams of GHGs. Oregon forest fire GHG emissions in 2007 were the equivalent of 11.1 million cars driven all year, or roughly 3 times the emissions from Oregon’s transportation sector in total.

Governor Kulongoski’s goal is to reduce GHG emissions in Oregon by 10% by the year 2020. I told the DEQ that they could achieve 25% reduction this year by cutting forest fire acreages in half.

I also told the DEQ that there were other forms of pollution that could be reduced by reducing forest fire acreage. These include:

- Destruction of plant communities including old-growth forests and threatened and endangered flora,

- Destruction of wildlife habitat including old-growth forest habitat and threatened and endangered fauna,

- Destruction of historical/cultural resources including Native American use and religious sites,

- Destruction of soils and increased erosion,

- Pollution of hydrology, waterways, watersheds and streams through increased sedimentation, addition of ash and soot, alteration of streamflows, and impacts to fisheries,

- Pollution of air and airsheds,

- Creation of hazards to public and worker safety,

- Destruction of recreation opportunities,

- Increased invasion by exotic and noxious weeds,

- Destruction of scenic quality,

- Destruction of economic resources including biomass energy sources,

- Destruction to wetlands, floodplains, farmland, rangeland, and homes, and other private property,

- Negative impacts to short-term and long-term productivity,

- Irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources,

- Negative impacts to civil rights and environmental justice

The best solution, I told the DEQ, would be to apply restoration forestry to landscape-scale tracts of Federal forestland.

Restoration forestry, including active management that decreases wildfire acreage and reduces above-ground biomass and fire intensities, would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Oregon wildfires. The Oregon DEQ should exercise their authority to insure that restoration forestry is implemented on Oregon’s Federal forests.

In addition, I told them, utilization of renewable biomass for energy generation would reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. The DEQ staffers in attendance seemed quite receptive to that idea, and told me that they had toured some new wood-based biomass generation plants in Oregon very recently.

I hope that the EQC considers my comments. The DEQ staffers are not the same as the EQC commissioners, none of whom attended the hearing. I also hope that other Oregonians will realize the virtues of restoration forestry, and not merely for reduction in our GHG emissions but for numerous other reasons, as well.