FREMONT-WINEMA TEAM WINS PACIFIC NORTHWEST AWARD FOR WILDFIRE CRISIS WORK

It’s usually a bad day when ‘Oregon’ and ‘fire’ make it into the headlines. A team from the U.S. Forest Service is changing that.

Wildfires have been worsening over the past two decades, aided by a changing climate, growing development in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), and accumulating fuels in the forest. In 2015, 2017, 2020 and 2021, more than 10 million acres burned from wildfire – that’s an area over six times the size of Delaware.

The situation looks grim, but there are answers – a ten-year strategy to address the Wildfire Crisis. It calls for treatment and mitigation, a simple term for a complex, ongoing process, involving, among other things, thinning forest stands, removing excess burnable materials – called fuels – and using prescribed fire to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires.

In Fiscal Year 2023, a group from the Fremont-Winema National Forest partnered with other organizations ranging from federal, state, tribal, and local governments to contractors, corporations and nonprofits. Their award-winning work will lead to about 100,000 acres being treated for reduction of fuels – meaning a significant positive impact on the resilience of the Forest. That’s in addition to the importance it has to the local economies that depend on the Forest for jobs, rangeland, education, recreation, and renewable forest products.

Tackling a crisis of historic proportions needs more than just hard work, though; “If we were totally traditional with our work,” says Emerson Cogburn, Timber Management Assistant, “It wouldn’t have happened. Trust built between our work group, partners, and contractors provided the space to try new things."

Emerson, along with Judd Lehman, District Ranger for the Chiloquin and Chemult ranger districts, Jade Souza, West Zone Planner, Evan Wright, Zone Fire Management Officer, David Lilly, District Fire Management Officer, and Kyle Gomez, Project Manager for the Klamath River Basin Priority Landscape, are receiving the Pacific Northwest Regional Forester’s Honor Award for their work on the Wildfire Crisis.

Lower risk of catastrophic wildfires, less disease, better habitat for wildlife, and healthier Forest stands sound picture-perfect – but there are still some hurdles to overcome. Smoke from prescribed burns and the burned appearance of treated areas immediately after prescribed fire are unpleasant when the community is used to crystal-clear air and verdant ponderosa groves. Experts say, however, that an elevated particulate count and RX burning are the ideal state for the Forest.

“It’s not a matter of if the Forest will burn, it’s a matter of when,” says Alissa Tanner, Branch Chief for Hazardous Fuels Management. “When the public comes knocking on my door, asking when we’re going to burn the Forest next to them, I’ll call that mission accomplished.”

With 2.3 million acres to treat on the Fremont-Winema alone, the award-winning team has their work cut out for them over the next year. “It’s challenging to achieve this scale of implementation,” says Kyle Gomez. “It takes a whole Forest working together to achieve this. I’m grateful for the employees that make up the team on the Fremont-Winema.”

Article by Benjamin Wilson, Fremont-Winema National Forest, 13 December 2023.