It’s a battle against time for Oregon wildfire damaged trees burned by last summer’s Barry Point Fire. That’s why crews from the Collins Lakeview Sawmill continue efforts to cut and truck trees to Lakeview while they still have commercial value.
Because lands privately owned by Collins don’t have to go through the extensive review process required on Forest Service lands, the company has been aggressively harvesting fire damaged trees, according to Lee Fledderjohann, the Lakeview sawmill’s resource manager.
The fire burned 24,300 acres of Collins lands, including 3,300 acres in Lake County and 21,000 in Modoc County. He said the company has harvested trees on about 18,000 acres and hopes to salvage upwards of 50 million board feet by December. During peak periods, log trucks were arriving at the Lakeview mill every 4-1/2 minutes, with the mill having a maximum capacity of handling 148 loads a day.
More recently, Collins has been harvesting trees on about 1,600 acres of Modoc National Forest lands burned by the fire. Collins also has worked with other private landowners. So far, however, approvals have not yet been cleared to begin salvage timber harvests on Fremont-Winema Forest lands.
Fremont-Winema plans call for removing about 26 million board feet of timber, beginning with hazard trees along forest roads followed by trees within a 1,200 foot corridor. The projected harvest represents less than 9 percent of Fremont-Winema lands burned.
From The Herald and News: https://www.heraldandnews.com/article_5e69f88e-2d8a-11e3-acb0-0019bb2963f4.html