Author: Luke Ruediger

  Beautiful fire resistant forest is proposed for group selection logging in the Bear Grub Timber Sale. These units are located at the headwaters of China Gulch and in the Wellington Wildlands. The trees marked with white paint are proposed for removal and are nearly all over 30″ in diameter.  Since the fall of 2019, Klamath Forest Alliance has been working with Applegate Neighborhood Network and residents throughout the Applegate Valley to oppose the Medford District BLM’s Bear Grub Timber Sale and to protect the Wellington Wildlands. Fire resistant forest on China Gulch marked for removal. The Bear Grub Timber Sale proposes “group selection” logging, a form of staggered clearcut logging that removes whole groves of mature, fire resistant forest in patches up to 4 acres in size and across up to 30% of a timber sale unit.  By removing large overstory trees and whole groves of fire resistant forest, these habitats will be...

A stand of mature, fire-resistant forest proposed for group selection logging in the Bear Grub Timber Sale. Nearly every tree in this photographs is proposed for removal in a group selection “opening.” The Klamath Forest Alliance recently teamed up with the Applegate Neighborhood Network to publish a detailed analysis of recent timber sales approved or proposed by the Medford District BLM. The report, “Medford District BLM Fire/Fuel Analysis for Timber Sales Authorized under the 2016 Resource Management Plan for Southwestern Oregon,” explores the potential impacts associated with these timber sales and highlights BLM’s own analysis, which concludes fire hazards will increase following the majority of commercial logging treatments. Read the full report at this link This report demonstrates that since 2016 roughly two-thirds of the acres approved for commercial logging by the Medford District BLM can be expected to increase fire hazards for...

Unit 13-1 directly below the East Applegate Ridge Trail contains open, fire resistant forest dominated by large, old trees. The Medford District BLM recently proposed a new timber sale in the foothills of the Applegate and Rogue River Valleys within the rainshadow of the Siskiyou Crest. The arid forests targeted for logging in the Bear Grub Timber Sale are the driest forest habitats in Western Oregon. Although designated for timber production, as “timber harvest landbase” by the Medford District BLM, these forests simply cannot sustain the level of logging proposed in the Bear Grub Timber Sale while still maintaining important social and biological values.  Biodiversity & Wildlife Large trees marked for removal in unit 13-6 along the East Applegate Ridge Trail. Found within a larger mosaic of chaparral, oak woodland, hardwood forests and arid grasslands, the forests of the Bear Grub Timber Sale are extremely important for their habitat values,...

Pilot Rock rises above upper Hutton Creek in the Soda Mountain Wilderness Area. The 2018 Klamathon Fire burned through this area at low to moderate severity, reinforcing a spectacular mosaic of mixed conifer forest, oak woodland, arid grassland, chaparral and basalt outcrops. Klamath Forest Alliance’s Klamath-Siskiyou Fire Report Program has recently released the 2018 Klamathon Fire Report exploring the fire effects and unfortunate fire suppression impacts sustained while crews from the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) worked to suppress the Klamathon Fire.  Some time has elapsed since the fire, and during that time Klamath Forest Alliance submitted a detailed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in order to fully inform our investigation. We waited 10 months to receive the FOIA documents which delayed the release of the report. Unfortunately, the BLM did not provide all the documents we requested and many key documents were either omitted or redacted, including...

Klamath Forest Alliance works to protect the wildlands of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains. At the Siskiyou Field Office of Klamath Forest Alliance (KFA) 2019 was busy and eventful. We advocated for conservation throughout the Siskiyou Mountains, opposing damaging federal land management projects and worked on policy issues surrounding fire and smoke in the state of Oregon.  This past year we have worked on projects as diverse as the Siskiyou Mountains themselves — from the fog drenched forests of the Wild Rivers Coast and into the serpentine barrens of the greater Kalmiopsis Wildlands. We also worked in the the chaparral, woodlands and forest habitats of the Applegate Valley; the rocky high country of the Siskiyou Crest; the rugged canyons of the Klamath River; and the transition between the Siskiyou Crest and the Cascade Mountains in the Soda Mountain Wilderness Area and Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. We officially submitted substantial comments for five Forest...