At 1,396 acres the Upper Applegate Fire was not a large wildland fire, yet it offered important insights into wildfire behavior, the rising cost of fire suppression, and the response of low elevation habitats in Southwestern Oregon to wildland fire. Started as a human ignition on June 20, 2024, the Upper Applegate Fire escaped initial attack containment on the valley floor and raced uphill under afternoon heat and high winds towards Cinnabar Ridge. This initial weather, terrain and wind driven run burned through extensive slopes of chaparral that last burned in the 1972 Little Applegate Fire. It also burned through oak woodland, mixed hardwood habitats, mixed conifer forests, and patches of Douglas fir mortality created by relatively recent flatheaded fir borer outbreaks. A view across Mill Gulch in the 2024 Upper Applegate Fire showing low severity fire effects in both snag patches and in mature mixed conifer forests. Although initially a public safety emergency and threat to...

The Unique Ecology, Recreational Values and Conservation Benefit of Mt. Ashland Mt. Ashland is the highest peak in the Siskiyou Mountains and one of the most popular recreation areas in southwestern Oregon for hiking, camping, mountain biking, botanizing, and recreational driving along Road 20. Well loved, but over developed, the Mt. Ashland area has been suffering a death by a thousand cuts ever since the initial ski resort development in 1964, and impacts are steadily growing on the mountain. Together the concentrated recreational use, the history of road building and grazing, the industrial ski resort development and the development of local communication facilities have all created significant cumulative effects and damage to unique natural habitats, species, and scenic values on the mountain. Mt. Ashland lies at the edge of the McDonald Peak Inventoried Roadless Area at the headwaters of Ashland Creek, and in the city of Ashland’s municipal watershed. The McDonald Peak...

Klamath Forest Alliance has just released a new Fire Report exploring the fire effects and fire suppression impacts of the 2023 fire season in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains. Our newest report, “2023 Klamath-Siskiyou Fire Report: Lessons in hubris and humility in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains,” examines four major wildfires that burned in the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains during the summer and fall of 2023. The report highlights lessons in hubris with devastating outcomes, long-lasting fire suppression impacts and unnecessarily extreme risks to fire suppression crews. Implemented to reduce acres burned at all costs, and maintain their reputation for aggressive, heavily politicized, backcountry fire suppression efforts, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest and Klamath National Forest regularly damage unique environments, intact wildlands, water quality, recreational opportunities, and other public resources to maintain a landscape-scale fire deficit, and send a...

2024 has been a big year for Klamath Forest Alliance (KFA) as we worked across the wild and remote mountains and streams of the Klamath-Siskiyou region to protect, defend, restore, and rewild the region. For over three decades KFA has stopped public land timber sales, new road construction, post-fire logging projects, and illegal off-road vehicle trails all across the Klamath-Siskiyou. We advocate for the vast, remote watersheds, old-growth forests, and unroaded wildlands spread throughout the region, from the Eel River in California to the Rogue River in Oregon. Supporting activists in both Arcata, California and the Applegate River watershed in Oregon, we cover large portions of Northern California and SW Oregon monitoring public land management activities, advocating for conservation, and opposing projects that would damage the unique biological diversity and ecological integrity that remains in the region. Below are major projects or campaigns we have supported in 2024 and...

Thanks to the work of Klamath Forest Alliance (KFA), other local activists, residents, and conservation organizations with a local, regional and national focus, the secret got out, and the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest announced this morning that the Secret Timber Sale on beautiful Briggs Creek, west of Grants Pass, Oregon has been cancelled, along with the impending timber sale auction! This large 53″ diameter legacy trees was marked for removal in the now cancelled Secret Timber Sale. Make no mistake, without the work of KFA activists monitoring the timber sale mark, the Forest Service would have logged these fire-adapted, old-growth trees! It is also important to note that this project was nominated by KFA for review under the National Old-Growth Amendment. In fact, we directly identified a need to review and to cancel the specific logging units that have now become so controversial. Rather than avoiding this controversy, by protecting these old forests, the Forest...