By Rufus Woods
The Wenatchee World
It was encouraging to see that the U.S. Forest Service is in the process of developing a new strategy for managing wildfires and dealing with the impacts of invasive species, drought and insect and disease epidemics.
The agency released a reported titled “Toward Shared Stewardship across Landscapes,” a lofty title that hopefully will be followed by specific actions aimed at a comprehensive approach to dealing with our out-of-control forest health issues.
What is critical is that the ultimate plan doesn’t leave the forest worse off than it is now.
North-Central Washington is at the cutting edge of the shift to a more collaborative and comprehensive approach to these issues. The Era of Megafires project featured the scientific insights of Dr. Paul Hessburg, a research landscape ecologist from Wenatchee.
Hessburg delivered more than 100 presentations across the West, and the effort gained significant traction. What that presentation shows is that our forest health issues are the result of a combination of factors, most notably a well intended, but flawed management practices of aggressively suppressing wildfire for the last century.
Fire has always been part of forest health, and those low-level fires kept the forests patchy — featuring lots of open space. Removing fire resulted in the massive buildup of fuels, which opened the door for disease and, with our warming climate, led to the massive fires we are now dealing with.
There are already calls to “solve” the wildfire issue with increased logging and eliminating environmental regulations. What’s called for is a comprehensive approach that includes logging, but ensures that the slash is removed.
The Era of Megafires project came forward with thoughtful recommendations to restore forest health, which included developing a commercial timber industry to strategically harvest timber, use control burns aggressively to reduce fuel loads on the forest at a landscape level, adopt rules for the Wildland Urban Interface to reduce the risk of wildfire loss as well as better coordinate firefighting between federal, state and local agencies.
The health of our communities is at stake in how the Forest Service goes forward. A logging-only mind-set without restoring the forests to the extent possible would be counterproductive.
Reach Rufus Woods at 509-665-1162.
