Log after fires? Study fuels debate

By Jeff Barnard

AP Environmental Writer

updated 3:18 p.m. ET Jan. 6, 2006

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - A study of the aftermath of the 2002 Biscuit fire, which has become the focus of debate over national forest management, concludes that logging burned trees killed large numbers of seedlings that sprouted on their own and increased the short-term danger of wildfire.

The study, published Friday in the journal Science, gives opponents of salvage logging new support. But it is not likely to resolve the continuing debate in Congress over what to do with the millions of acres of national forests that burn every year.

"These results surprised us," said Dan Donato, a graduate student in forest science at Oregon State University who was lead author of the study. "Even after a huge high-severity fire in a place that is really tough to grow trees we are finding abundant natural tree regeneration."

Based on test plots in areas that were logged and not logged, the study also found that cutting down dead trees left much more wood on the ground to fuel future fires, even after the logs were hauled away, than leaving the trees standing, unless crews burn the debris.

"Why that is important is because on some fires those additional treatments aren't carried out due to lack funds," Donato said.

Most debris remained
Only a third of the area logged on Biscuit had debris burned afterward to reduce wildfire danger, primarily due to weather constraints, said Jim Golden, deputy Northwest regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service.

Ignited by a series of lighting strikes, the Biscuit fire burned 500,000 acres of the Siskiyou National Forest in southwestern Oregon, making it the biggest fire in the country in 2002. Environmental groups battled the Bush administration in federal court to limit the amount of salvage logging in the name of protecting fish and wildlife habitat, but lost.

Environmental groups argued that the best course is to let burned forests regenerate on their own, producing diverse habitats more resistant to future fires. The Bush administration and timber industry counter that harvesting dead trees provides valuable timber and pays for modern reforestation techniques that produce a new forest decades faster than nature.

Courtesy Of Joe Fontaine In this image provided by researchers, vegetation takes root in a burned but not logged stand from Oregon's Biscuit fire.

Logging began last spring, but turned out far less timber than planned at prices far below predictions. Much of the wood was worthless as timber after three years of rotting.

Last fall, Reps. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Brian Baird, D-Wash., introduced a bill demanding that areas hit by fires, storms and insect infestations greater than 1,000 acres be evaluated quickly with standardized approaches, taking into account different ecosystems, to decide the best course to restore wildlife habitat and timber.

Jerry Franklin, professor of forestry at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the Northwest Forest Plan, which cut logging to protect wildlife habitat, called the new study "good science."

"This is very consistent with my testimony (on the salvage logging bill last year), which is that salvage almost never makes a positive contribution to ecological recovery," he said.

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