SOS Forests

Another Forest Tragedy

The Rooster Rock Fire [here] near Sisters, Oregon is now 6,124 acres and 65% contained. It is unlikely to grow any larger because winds have died down and the CO2’s (Central Oregon Type 2 Incident Management Team, Mark Rapp I.C.) in cooperation with the Oregon Dept. of Forestry have done their usual excellent job of controlling the fire.

The fire began from unknown causes on US Forest Service (Deschutes NF) land on August 2nd. It quickly spread east and south to private lands. Approximately three-quarters of the area burned by the Rooster Rock Fire is private land.

Rooster Rock Fire Map, 08/06/2010, courtesy Central Oregon IMT. Click for larger image.

The fire was about 5 miles south of Sisters. A few homes were evacuated, but the evacuations have now been lifted. An estimated 50 homes were threatened, but no homes burned.

The Rooster Rock Fire was the 13th large fire in the northern Deschutes NF in the last 8 years. Over 160,000 acres, primarily in the the Metolius River watershed, have been incinerated. The scar of burned old-growth now extends from Warm Springs to the north to the Three Sisters Wilderness to the south, from the Cascade Crest to private lands to the east. The following Burns make up this destroyed forest landscape (this list is missing a few smaller ones):

Cache Mountain Fire (2002) - 3,894 acs

Eyerly Complex Fires (2002) - 23,573 acs

B&B Complex Fires (2003) - 90,769 acs

Link Fire (2003) - 3,574 acs

Black Crater Fire (2006) - 9,400 acs

Puzzle Fire (2006) - 6,150 acs

Lake George Fire (2006) - 5,740 acs

GW Fire (2007) - 7,500 acs

Dry Creek Fire (2008) - 110 acs

Summit Springs Complex Fires (2008) - 1,973 acs

Wizard Fire (2008) - 1,840 acs

Black Butte II Fire (2009) - 578 acs

Rooster Rock Fire (2010) - 6,124 acs

Total - 161,225 acres in eight fire seasons

The heritage forest destroyed includes the Santiam Pass, a major trade route used for thousands of years by the indigenous residents: Calapooia, Molalla, Northern Piute, Klamath, and other Nations. The formerly open, park-like ponderosa pine forest maintained for millennia by anthropogenic fire has been invaded by thickets of firs following disease epidemics and removal of the remainder of the long-time residents.

The U.S. Government assumed ownership of the land 100 years ago and has failed to care for it. Thickets have grown up amongst the heritage old-growth pines and fueled catastrophic fires. Vast tracts of old-growth pines have been killed, and dozens of spotted owl nesting stands have been destroyed. Adjacent private property has been incinerated. Modern day residents have been forced to flee their homes a dozen times.

The attitude of the Urban Elite who live far, far away was best summed up by Editor Hasso Hering of the Albany, Oregon, Democrat Herald (guess which political party they are biased towards) during the Black Crater Fire of 2006 [here].

As in many mountain communities throughout the West, retirees and wealthy baby boomers are staking out their slice of heaven here, among Central Oregon’s sage and ponderosa pines. Foresters call the flow of homes into the forests the “wildland-urban interface.”

Despite the class warfare denigrations, no homes exist on the National Forest. All homes are on private property, but that private property has been subjected to holocausts arising on the unkempt Federal land again and again.

Then Deschutes Forest Supervisor Leslie Weldon called for more Let It Burn fires during the Black Crater Fire. She was subsequently named Regional Forester of the Northern Rocky Mountain Region. Then Deputy Forest Supervisor Cecilia Romero Seesholtz is now Forest Supervisor of the Boise National Forest in Boise, Idaho. Both women have taken their Let It Burn policies to new heights in their new positions.

In 2003 the B&B Fire started as two lightning strikes, or possibly arsons, within a quarter mile of a highway and minutes from multiple fire stations. The order of the day was to Let It Burn. During the fire, a Congressional hearing on the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (then a Bill) was held in Redmond, OR. Region 6 Regional Forester Linda Goodman testified that the USFS was pursuing rapid initial attack on every fire. At that very moment, as the smoke from the B&B Fire poured over the building and contrary to Goodman’s assertion, USFS fire crews were being ordered to stand back, stand at idle, and wait for the fire to reach non-designated ground. A Big Lie was issued that day by a government functionary. We still shudder with the memory of the blatant mendacity and disregard for forests uttered in Redmond that day.

It has been a seemingly hopeless task, but some of us have pushed for restoration forestry* on the Deschutes NF for many years. Our desire is that the thickets of fir be removed and the forests restored to their open, park-like, pre-contact condition. We would like to see heritage trees, trails, cultural sites, wildlife habitat, and watersheds protected instead of incinerated.

*Restoration forestry is active management to bring back historical cultural landscapes, historical forest development pathways, and traditional ecological stewardship to achieve historical resiliency to fire and insects and to preclude and prevent a-historical catastrophic fires that decimate and destroy myriad resource values [here]. Restoration occurs before catastrophic fires. After the fires recovery and/or rehabilitation treatments are required.

Yes, 160,000 acres of heritage forests have been destroyed on the Deschutes NF, at huge public expense and endangering private homes on private lands near the National Forest. But significant not-yet-destroyed forests still exist there.

Although the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) was passed and signed into law in 2003, few if any treatments have resulted. Lawsuits and agency intransigence have resulted in failure to address the core problem: the build up of fuels in heritage forests across the Deschutes NF.

The Forest Landscape Restoration Act (Title IV of Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, here) offers some slight chance that restoration could happen someday. The FRLA calls for restoration treatments of 50,000 acres and larger. But Congress has failed to adequately fund the FRLA, and the USFS has not approved a single proposed FRLA project. It is not clear that the USFS or Congress have any idea what restoration forestry actually looks like.

One step toward a solution would be for Congress to hold investigative hearings on restoration forestry, so that they might learn what that practice entails. Even though the HFRA has been in place for seven years, Congress has yet to explore, much less define, the underlying concept.

Another positive step would be to implement forest history analyses on every National Forest. A key element in restoration is the elucidation of heritage conditions and historical forest development pathways. The Deschutes NF is, historically, a cultural landscape patterned by an anthropogenic mosaic. That historical and scientific fact needs to better understood in detail before effective restoration can take place.

We will continue to push for restoration forestry. We know we are bucking the Urban Elite and their Left Wing class war; the pro-holocausters within and outside the USFS; an unengaged and ignorant Congress; a decrepit, hidebound, and politically-hamstrung forest science establishment; and the mislead, abused, and fearful public. But we also know that restoration forestry is the only way to protect, maintain, and perpetuate America’s priceless heritage forests.

Inch by inch. It would be nice if we could convince the public of the virtues of restoration forestry, before what’s left of our public forests (and private lands, homes, towns, and cities) is decimated by catastrophic forest fires.