Spiky clumps of Oregon grape are just beginning to emerge in a sea of brown needles, charred bark and blackened rock blanketing southwestern Klamath County. “It burned hot,” said Andy Geissler, pointing to naked trees and gnarled shrubs that were scorched in the 35,000-acre Oregon wildfire, the Gulch Fire, in August. “I haven’t seen a green needle in a while.”
On Wednesday, Geissler, a Western Oregon field forester for the American Forest Resource Council, and a representative from Boise-Cascade toured a portion of the 17,000 acres blackened in Klamath County; roughly 5,000 of those acres are public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Before the Gulch Fire ignited on July 31, the land was covered with grassy flats, shrubs, oak woodland, pine and other conifer. Now, timber managers are scouring the area to find out what’s left and if it has any value.
“Timing is the key. These trees burned and they’ve got a shelf life,” Geissler said. “It’s kind of a risky venture to put bids in on salvage wood because you just don’t know what you’re getting into.”
According to BLM forester Shane Durant, salvage logging has already begun at the Gulch Fire site. He said the agency met National Environmental Policy Act requirements with a special exclusion that allowed timber slated for harvest on an existing sale to be salvage logged. Durant pointed out that much of the BLM land affected by the fire is designated as Oregon and California Railroad Act (O&C) land.
He said the land was heavily logged about 100 years ago, but has since been managed as part of the O&C program intended to provide money to counties through timber production. Of the 4,870 acres burned in Klamath County, only 818 acres are public domain. The rest is O&C land.
From Capital Press: https://www.capitalpress.com/Timber/20141027/salvage-logging-begins-after-oregon-wildfire