From The Sunday Oregonian, March 23, 2003, p E12 (Oregon & The West)

Proposal to log trees burned in Biscuit fire faces criticism
Environmentalists think a Siskiyou plan goes too far, and timber
officials say it doesn't go far enough

By BETH QUINN, Correspondent, The oregonian
MEDFORD - Commercial logging of dead and dying trees from last year's
massive Biscuit Fire would triple the target amount of timber to be
cut annually in the Siskiyou National Forest under a U.S. Forest
Service proposal.
Salvaging valuable timber, reducing the chances of catastrophic fires
in the future and planting Douglas firs on ground unlikely to quickly
recover are the major goals of the Biscuit Fire recovery project.
Forest officials will analyze a range of alternatives for
accomplishing those goals before issuing a draft environmental impact
statement in July.
Already, the timber industry and environmentalists are squaring off
over the proposal to salvage of 90 million board feet of timber from
7,000 acres of so-called matrix land currently open to commercial
logging that lie within the boundary of the massive 500,000 acre
wildfire. Under the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, the Siskiyou Forest
forecast an average annual cut of 24 million board feet. Under the
recovery proposal, burned trees would be untouched in both the
180,000-acre Kalmiopsis Wilderness and 143,000 acres of nearby
roadless forest.
That approach is too conservative, said Dave Hill, executive director
of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association, which estimates
that half the standing volume of timber in the Siskiyou Forest - 15
billion board feet - was scorched by the fire.
A hands-off approach to the burned wilderness and roadless forest
would leave a fuel-loaded tinder box of unhelathy forest that would be
unsuitable habitat for endangered wildlife, Hill said.
"This a burn victim that needs help," Hill said. "I think we know how
to provide the help and can do it in an environmentally sensible way
that is good for the economy."
Environmentalists insist the Siskiyou's plan is too aggressive.
Barbara Ullian, conservation director of the Siskiyou Regional
Education Project, contends that even dead trees contribute to forest
health by providing habitat for animals and norishment for damaged
forest soils.
Also of concern to environmentalists is the Siskiyou's plan to reduce
future fire hazard by creating shaded fuel breaks, areas of thinned
forest up to one-half-mile wide designed to limit the spread of
wildfire and provide a safe starting point for firefighters battling
forest blazes.
"Is this just another volume grab?" Ullian said. "The devil is going
to be in the details on that."
Reducing the chances of catastrophis fires was a major concern voiced
by residents in meetings held last winter, said Tom Link, Siskiyou
Forest timber officer.
"This gives us an opportunity to get out ahead of that where we know
we'll have fires in the future," Link said.
Up to half the forest canopy was killed in the Biscuit fire, leaving
large areas so denuded of conifers that it might be hundreds of years
before a forest of Douglas firs would regrow naturally, Link said.
The Siskiyou Forest proposes to replant locally-adapted seedlings on
30,000 burned acres in hopes of more quickly regrowing the kind of
forest needed by endangered species such as the northern spotted owl,
he sald.
Public comments on the Biscuit Fire Recovery Plan will be accepted
through April 21. A draft environmental impact statement will be
released in July and finalized in November. Salvage logging and other
aspects of the plan would begin in spring 2004. More information is
available at www.biscuitfire.com or by calling 541-471-6500.

Comment by poster: There is little scientific support for harvesting
older trees in any attempt to reduce future fire danger. Also, there
is little scientific reliability on what the best form of fire, fire
suppression, forest thinning or forest planting for future forests,
is. For more on that subject, see posting on Wildfire Answers also in
these ng's.

Daniel B. Wheeler
www.oregonwhitetruffles.com