The Taylor Creek Fire burned into the famous Hellgate Canyon on the Wild and Scenic Rogue River at low to moderate severity, leaving most of the conifer overstory intact. The Taylor Creek Fire burned this summer in the mountains west of Grants Pass, Oregon. The fire burned through a diverse mosaic of mixed conifer forest, oak woodland, mixed hardwood stands, serpentine savanna, and rugged serpentine barrens. The Taylor Creek Fire has burned 52,838 acres and is 95% contained.  The fire began on July 15 in a large lightning storm that lit fires throughout southern Oregon. The Taylor Creek Fire was one of many fires in the area, but it outpaced many of the local fires, burning roughly 20,000 acres in the first week. By early August, the Taylor Fire had merged with the Klondike Fire as it burned east from the Illinois River canyon. Large tactical firing operations occurred on the long ridgelines connecting the Illinois River to Onion Mountain above the Illinois Valley....

Last year Azalea Lake in the Red Buttes Wilderness burned at mixed severity in the 2017 Miller Complex Fire.  The 2018 fire season has been very active in southern Oregon and northern California, with both lightning and human caused fires burning across the region. Domesticated landscapes and urban areas, as well as wildlands and wilderness areas have burned, filling the canyons and valleys with smoke.  At times, the fires have burned slowly, creating low to moderate-severity fire effects. At other times, wind and weather-driven runs have scorched the forest canopy, spread quickly and burned with intensity. The result is a diverse mosaic of mixed-severity fire, creating complex structural conditions, a variety of plant communities, staggered successional stages and uniquely biodiverse and abundant post-fire landscapes.  Although the 2018 fire season has been tragic due to the loss of life and the burning of many homes, much of the backcountry fire...

Unit 3-11 of the Clean Slate Timber Sale contains uncut, old-growth forest on fragile soils. The unit would be logged to between 25%-35% canopy cover and Northern spotted owl habitat would be removed. Throughout 2017, local residents organized and worked hard to shut down the southwestern portion of Grants Pass BLM’s Pickett West Timber Sale outside Selma, Oregon on Deer Creek. This portion of the Pickett West Timber Sale proposed to log over 1,500 acres of old forest habitat and was withdrawn due to significant public opposition, effective community organizing and unacceptable impacts to the red tree vole, a preferred prey species of the threatened Northern spotted owl. Although this was a significant victory, many of us knew it was not the last struggle over ancient forest habitat in the Deer Creek Valley. Portions of the Deer Creek Watershed have been identified as “Timber Harvest Landbase” in the BLM’s 2016 Resource Management Plan (RMP),...

Old-growth forest proposed for logging in the Upper Briggs Restoration Project on the Secret Way Trail, south of Sam Brown Campground. Upper Briggs Restoration Project: Old forest logging proposed on Briggs Creek! Please comment now, the comment period ends May 31st! Briggs Creek is a beautiful stream flowing south into the Illinois River canyon from its headwaters near Onion Mountain Lookout, Taylor Mountain, and to the west, Chrome Ridge. The region contains steep forested slopes, gentle green meadows at Briggs Valley, serpentine ridges, and clear flowing streams. Briggs Creek is an important cold water tributary of the Illinois River with runs of coho salmon and steelhead trout. It is also an important recreation area just west of Grants Pass, Oregon with the world’s tallest ponderosa pine trees. The region has a rich human history of indigenous land management, and later, of mining, logging, ranching and recreation. The creek is named for George Briggs who...

A view down the Balls Branch of Humbug Creek into the Applegate Valley. The Wellington Butte Roadless Area is one of the most wild, spectacular, and threatened landscapes in the foothills of the Applegate Valley. It is also perhaps the most accessible wildland in the Applegate Watershed, with immense conservation and recreational opportunities The region contains a diverse mosaic of plant communities, including sweeping grasslands, dense chaparral, sunlit oak woodlands, intact conifer forests and beautiful, mixed-hardwood stands dominated by madrone. A flush of annual lupine blooming at the headwaters of the Balls Branch of Humbug Creek. Spring has arrived in the Wellington Butte Roadless Area, and the slopes are currently ablaze with the colors of spring, buzzing with busy bees, fluttering butterflies, pollinating flies and beetles. Song birds chirp and sing, happily foraging for insects and seeds on the steep mountain slopes and in the brushy chaparral. Deer...