PORTLAND, Ore. - Groups are lining up for and against five possible alternatives for managing 2.6 million acres of Western Oregon forests known as the O&C lands.

The Bureau of Land Management is updating the 20-year-old Northwest Forest Plan. To timber industry groups, the complex options boil down to one key point - how much timber can be harvested? But BLM project manager Mark Brown said most of the public comments received so far have focused on the need to keep the lands accessible for recreation, so the agency is trying to accommodate both.

"It used to be the mentality was that they're mutually incompatible, or that they would be in conflict with each other," he said. "But the types of recreation that the public demands now are a lot different than they did 25 years ago."

Conservation groups also are concerned about maintaining protections for fish and wildlife. Brown said the agency knows a lot more now than it did 20 years ago about endangered species and climate change, and is incorporating the new information into the Resource Management Plan.

These former railroad lands - officially "Oregon and California Revested Grantlands" - were given back to Oregon in the early 1900s, and a 1930s law required part of their logging proceeds be used to benefit the 18 counties where the land is located. As head of the Association of O&C Counties, Columbia County Commissioner Tony Hyde said his group isn't pleased with any of the plan alternatives - but would choose the one that allows the highest timber harvest.

"We don't want to clear-cut the world, and we've never said that," he said. "We want responsible management. I love hiking and fishing as much as the next person. But I also love being able to know that we're going to have a sheriff and a jail, and public services that are basic requirements for government."

Hyde said he isn't convinced recreation is making a significant difference in some counties' coffers, but others say the counties need to do more to diversify their economies. Of the five alternatives laid out by the BLM, one would keep the status quo. Four others would allow logging ranging from 120 million to 486 million board feet per year.

Public meetings about the alternatives will be held from mid-May through June.

The plan is online at blm.gov, and the meeting schedule is here.


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State and federal agencies are collaborating to increase the use of prescribed fires in the Northwest.

Prescribed fire is the controlled use of burns to minimize the larger risks of wildfires and smoke. It is seen as an increasingly important strategy as wildfire seasons pose greater threats to the Northwest.

Casey Sixkiller, Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said authorities want to work together to maintain forest habitats.

"Prescribed burn is one of the best tools we have for making our forests more resilient against catastrophic wildfires and they help to manage and target hazardous fuels and make for healthier forests," Sixkiller explained.

Sixkiller pointed out the EPA is involved because wildfire smoke poses risks to people's health. The collaboration is between federal agencies, departments in Oregon and Washington, and tribal governments.

Sixkiller noted the collaboration needed a formal agreement to move forward.

"That is what we've been able to do here with this agreement," Sixkiller emphasized. "To get federal land managers and states and us all in the same room, making sure that we're all on the same page about what success looks like."

Sixkiller added the collaboration has another advantage: It helps drive engagement with communities potentially in the path of prescribed burns.

"They have the confidence that the effort that's gone into planning that activity has been thought out from soup to nuts," Sixkiller acknowledged. "And that they have a seat at the table and are being engaged and their concerns are being addressed as we go forward with that activity."


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A new study in the journal Nature Communications by Montana researchers said suppressing small wildfires is leading to larger, more intense and damaging blazes.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, about 98% of wildfires are fully suppressed before they grow to 100 acres; most of them within 72 hours. In Montana, the latest data show crews kept 95% of wildfires in Montana to no more than 10 acres in 2022.

Mark Kreider, a doctoral candidate in forest and conservation science at the University of Montana and co-author of the report, said the strategy leads to what is known as fire "suppression bias."

"Removing more of one type of fire than the other, what we're left with is bias towards the higher intensity fires, these more extreme fires," Kreider explained.

Montana state policy calls for crews to extinguish fires as quickly as possible, even small ones. Kreider pointed out researchers recommend letting low-intensity fires burn where possible to reduce the risk and damage potential for larger, hotter-burning and more catastrophic blazes.

Kreider acknowledged as the population grows along the urban-wildland interface, letting fires burn is not always possible, but argued it might be the best strategy for heading off catastrophic fires later.

"Especially in the western U.S. where people live close to forests, fire suppression is very important and we still must do it," Kreider noted. "But this research helps to show when possible in places where it's safe to do so, we really may benefit from allowing more low and moderate intensity fire to burn."

The National Interagency Fire Center said the number of acres scorched by wildfire has doubled since the 1980s, and the cost to battle the fires has risen to nearly $3 billion a year.


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The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has awarded $3.1 million for 13 projects to reduce wildfire risk to communities and improve forest health.

The funding money is part of the $15 million Montana Forest Action Plan, which takes a big-picture approach to reducing the risk of wildfires.

Wyatt Frampton, deputy division administrator of forestry and trust lands for the Montana Department of Natural Resources, said the money will be used to foster fire-management cooperation between state and private landowners across 3,200 acres of forest.

"Through a variety of activities, such as prescribed fire, logging, mechanical thinning, hand activities as well as tree planting," Frampton outlined.

The 13 most recent restoration projects are spread across the state, including in Lewis and Clark County, the Bitterroot and the South Swan Valley.

Frampton said the DNR is aiming to create a cohesive fire-reduction plan across Montana's landscape, which has until now been inconsistent because of different sets of land-management practices.

"Right now when we see a patchwork of treatments across some of the landscapes in the state, from a fire-management perspective, it doesn't create a clean or effective barrier for trying to stop the fire in that area," Frampton explained. "Where, if we had a cohesive landscape-level treatment, that would help."

Frampton added having a statewide cohesive fire-management plan would also allow the DNR and other agencies to slow the spread of potentially destructive insects in Montana's forests.


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