KS News

The Happy Camp Ranger District of the Klamath National Forest boasts some of the most spectacular backcountry recreation on Earth.  Located along the Klamath River near the renowned Marble Mountains Wilderness Area and the lesser-known but equally impressive High Siskiyou Wilderness, Happy Camp more than lives up to its name.

The mixed conifer old-growth forests that grow around Happy Camp have evolved with fire for centuries. Prior to Smokey the Bear’s anti-fire propaganda, local Native American would ignite fires in these mountains so-as to ensure the benefits to forest health and species diversity that fire encouraged. Small diameter “ladder” fuels were often consumed by flames, hardwoods were given space to grow, large conifers flourished, and ecological balance was maintained.

Ecological balance was not at the forefront of the Forest Service’s thinking when in the summer of 2007 a fire suppression crew from out-of-state “fought” several smoldering lighting-started fires by punching in over thirty miles of bulldozer fire line and then “firing off” burnout operations from those lines.  Indeed, far more old-growth trees were killed by the Forest Service’s fire “suppression” activities than by the lightning caused fire.

Following the 2007 summer fires, at the behest of the timber industry, the Forest Service immediately started planning “salvage” timber sales on steep slopes located above salmon-bearing streams in the Little Grider and Independence watersheds. Intent on avoiding public scrutiny and environmental analysis of their logging proposals, the agency intends to circumvent the public planning required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Rather than examine and disclose the impacts of the proposed logging, the Forest Service is writing “Categorical Exclusions” to authorize logging activity without the benefit of site-specific studies or analysis.

For years fire ecologists have been telling all who will listen that the patches dead trees (snags) created by the fires and other natural disturbance events are a vital ecosystem component for forest health.  The snags provide crucial habitat for a number of at-risk terrestrial species such as the Northern Spotted Owl, the Pacific Fisher and the Pileated Woodpecker. Further, the snags (and down wood) provide stability for the soils, shelter for the seedlings, and the primary source of wood for in-stream fish habitat. 

Recently, peer-reviewed studies have confirmed that post-fire logging inevitably harms natural recovery.  In 2006 forest researcher Dan Donato found that salvage logging at the Biscuit fire had killed tree seedlings and increased fuel loads.  Similarly, in 2007 researchers from the Corvallis Forestry Sciences lab found that forest stands that had been logging and replanted following the 1987 Silver Fire burned more severely in the 2002 Biscuit fire than stands which had not been subjected to salvage logging.  

What Do The Forest Service’s Own Documents Say About Fire Affected Forests?

“Snags are key habitat for numerous species. They provide forage, cavities for nesting and protection, perch sites, and den sites. Snag characteristics such as state of decay, density size, and species influence their use by wildlife. Snags are also an important structural component of a forest and large snags are considered to be one of the distinctive features of an old-growth forest."

- Klamath National Forest Happy Watershed Analysis, 8.

“Late-successional and old-growth stands developed with, and were probably maintained by fire.”

- Klamath National Forest Happy Watershed Analysis, 17.

Stay tuned for more information on these sales, KS Wild's efforts to protect fire-adapted ecosystems, and for a hike to the area in Spring 2008. Click here to read more about fire and the Klamath-Siskiyou.

For more general information on fire ecology and fire management please visit www.fusee.org