"Foresters say disastrous fires coming if fuel load not reduced"

Excerpts from the December 30, 2002, article by John Diehm of the Siskiyou Daily News

"SISKIYOU COUNTY- If something is not done soon to reduce the unhealthy fuel loading in the forests of Siskiyou County there is an eminent  probability of disastrous fire in the near furture that could destroy more than a million acres, claim foresters Jim Nile, Jim Ostrowski anmd Steve Henson."

"...Henson said the U.S. Forest Service owns 60 percent of the land base in Siskiyou County.

"'In the past our forests have added 405 million board feet of material a year,' Henson said. 'We are currently adding 605 million board feet a year and removing only 30 million board feet from the forests.'

"He said that in 1987 Sikiyou County forests had 13.5 billion board feet of timber in its standing inventory. That inventory is now up to 28 billion board feet. 'That growth is a result of lack of management and restrictive cutting practices,'

"To conceptualize how much lumber 600 million board feet of resource represents, Henson said it takes 150,000 logging truck loads. It takes 7,000 logging trucks to remove 30 million feet.

"'This creates a stand condition that we don't get a normal fire,' Henson siad. 'With these conditions you have a destructive fire that destroys everything...."

"Ostrowski said Siskiyou County had a history of large fires. In 1939, the Deer Creek Fire burned 17,410 acres from Castle Lake to Edgewood in three days. In 1955, the Haystack fire burned 63,507.

"'None of these fires were anything like the Biscuit fire to the north in Oregon,' Ostrowski said. 'With our present fuel loading we have the potential of a fire destroying over a million acres in Siskiyou County.'

"'We have a problem of a potential crisis but there are solutions,' Ostrowski said. 'Options of fire prevention include increase fire supression, thinning fuels, prescribed burning, defensible space, and urban-wildland interface buffers. It takes a combination of these because no one solution can do it all.'

"Henson said the Forest Service is doing the best it can with its limited resources and restrictive policies. There is a need for a collaborative effort with all landowners. He suggested a coordination of efforts that would work with federal land managers, encourage good infrastructure development and efficient land management, and take fire prevention steps.

"'As professional foresters, we are coming with an offer to help,' Niles said. 'We want to form an ad hoc committee to participate in strategies and solutions to the problems. We want to iunvestigate options, develop models for catastrophic fire preventions, and report back to the supervisors on a later date.'

"The supervisors requested that county staff prepare a report on how the county can participate in this collaborative process.

"'We are talking about collaborative forestry,' Niles said. 'Many of these efforts end up on the rock because of lavk of interest in local government. The counties can be co-lead agency and have an active hand in these decisions. There are people all over the forested West willing to provide support."