UO Student Series: An Unrecognizable Landscape: Mismanagement in the Post-Forest Fire Cleanup
If nothing changes, Oregon will continue to see a change in its landscape, not due to scorching flames, but due to preventable mismanagement.
**This post is from a member of Professor David Frank’s Spring Term class at the University of Oregon. We’ll share several more of these posts from young Oregonians this week. Go Ducks!**
Mindy is a biology major at the University of Oregon and Clark Honors College. Currently, she is an undergraduate researcher in the Sylwestrak Lab.
The legend of the mice and the Douglas fir
There is an indigenous story in the West Coast about forest mice running from a wildfire. In a Giving Tree-esque fashion, the mice ask a maple and cedar tree for shelter. But both trees tell the mice they are unable to beat the heat, and the mice scurry off with the fire nipping at their tails. Finally, the mice come across a large, old Douglas fir. The fir urges the mice to climb up its fire-resistant trunk for protection. Hiding in the branches hanging far into the sky, the mice survive through the terrible fire along with the Douglas fir.
One takeaway from the legend is the resiliency of trees like the Douglas fir to survive and grow long after the scorching flames of a forest fire. Much like the legend, devastating fires spread all across the West Coast last summer, ultimately leaving 1 million acres burnt in Oregon and an estimated 140,000 burned trees that “could be dangerous to people on state roads or burned properties.” As a result, the state was granted Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to cover 75% of the costs to remove the remaining hazardous trees. Lawmakers needed to quickly implement scientifically sound methods for the sake of public safety. However, employees and conservation groups have come forward to call out the excessive cutting and mismanagement of the cleanup project.
Though there’s an urgent need to remove debris from the forest fires that urgency must be weighed against the importance of leaving healthy trees standing. That balance has not been realized in the current clean-up effort. The current management has left parts of Oregon’s landscape unrecognizable. After forest fires, trees have varying degrees of health and its important to take down the correct ones. Policy is needed to deal with dead and dying trees across the West Coast, and the best policy is built on scientifically sound methods, not political exigencies. That’s why the state must halt the project and modify their approach as to not clear healthy trees from Oregon’s beautiful landscape.
Support for the project’s continuation
While opposition grows against the current management, support for the post-fire cleanup persists among several stakeholders. Dead or dying trees pose threat to public safety, especially when those trees are near roadways. Organizations focused on that safety have advocated for the continuation of the improper approach. Tony Andersen, Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) spokesman, notes the urgency of removing trees to reduce the likelihood of danger to those driving along roads decimated by the fires.
Other supporters of the current project have premised their approval on the need to maximize the use of funds. However, not all trees die or need to be cut down after fires. So, when mismanagement impacts healthy parts of Oregon’s landscape, a swift execution of the cleanup project becomes reckless.
Whistleblowers and conservation groups call out mismanagement
One critique of the current project targets the lack of knowledgeable, experienced workers in the project. The best scientific method is not in use and the result of that is an irresponsibly high amount of logging. A Florida-based company, CDR McGuire, was hired by ODOT to oversee the project. But, ODOT has been criticized for hiring a company so far removed from the Pacific Northwest. State Senator Deb Patterson, D-Salem, stated, “We’ve got experts here [in Oregon]. Why would we hire a firm from Florida to manage this process?”
Working with CDR McGuire is Mason, Bruce & Girard, a Portland-based company tasked with quality control. But, even with the assistance of a local company, worries arose after employees of the two companies shared their concerns, some of which were the failure “to develop proper guidelines” and the use of a phone application to help the inexperienced workers identify hazardous trees.
Along with employees working directly in the cleanup project, the logging has opposition from more than twenty conservation groups. The groups sent a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack discussing their concerns about the lack of transparency and non-scientific methods of the post-fire roadside logging.
Solutions found in science education and methods
The Mason, Bruce & Girard guidelines are taken from the Forest Service and take into account the “percentage of bark char, crown scorch and insect presence” to determine if the health of a tree. However, cosmetics alone are not indicative of the overall survivability of that tree. Bev Law, Oregon State University professor at the School of Forestry, says “external indicators of fire damage, such as crown scorch, can appear dramatically damaging, but actually they pose little risk to the tree’s long-term survival.” There are 140,000 burned trees and a more scientifically informed method is needed to properly deal with them. With the current management of the cleanup project, Oregon landscapes have become unrecognizable because scientifically informed methods are not used to the degree that it must. Beyond the aesthetics of the landscape, overlogging burned forests can lead to future environmental issues like soil erosion, water pollution, and the deterioration of wildlife habitats.
Also, a workforce educated on local forestry should be required. If a different, locally knowledgeable company cannot be integrated into the project, the state needs to require CDR McGuire to educate their current workforce on the local timber and forest life cycles.
Lawmakers are considering halting the entire project as a result of the backlash and allegations of mismanagement. So, lawmakers need to quickly implement scientifically sound methods to allow the logging to continue swiftly as well as to ensure the proper execution of the project. If nothing changes, Oregon will continue to see a change in its landscape, not due to scorching flames, but due to preventable mismanagement.