The Klamath Forest Alliance works hard to protect, restore and rewild the Siskiyou Crest as a vital connectivity corridor Please donate to the Siskiyou Office of  Klamath Forest Alliance!  The Klamath Forest Alliance (KFA) has been advocating for the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains for 29 years. Specifically, we advocate for wilderness and roadless landscapes, biodiversity, wildlife, connectivity and the ecological integrity of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains. KFA has long been focused on the watersheds of northern California. Since 2012, through a coalition with the Siskiyou Crest Blog, KFA has broadened our scope. We have expanded our advocacy into the Siskiyou Mountains of southwestern Oregon, from the Wild Rivers Coast to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. In the last few years, KFA has taken a leading role in numerous successful campaigns to cancel or significantly alter the Nedsbar, Pickett West and Savage Murph Timber Sales on BLM land. We...

A large “group selection cut” in the Squishy Bug Timber Sale on the west face of Woodrat Mountain above Ruch, Oregon. The BLM removed many large, living trees in this unit, creating small clearcuts in forest that survived the 2016 bark beetle outbreak. View the full report: The Squishy Bug Timber Sale: “Salvage” Logging, Bark Beetles and Invalid Assumptions for NEPA Analysis In the spring of 2016, a relatively large-scale outbreak of flat headed fir borer beetles spread throughout the more arid portions of the Applegate Valley. The usually chronic, but low levels of bark beetle mortality generally present in the Applegate were temporarily replaced by an increased and eruptive level of bark beetle mortality. This relatively short-lived outbreak was triggered by the drought conditions of 2013-2014 that allowed flat headed fir borer populations to expand quite rapidly. Although this was a large-scale outbreak for the region, it was...

The upper portions of Dillon Creek burned at largely low severity during the Eclipse Complex Fire, moderated by recent fire footprints and atmospheric inversion layers.  The Klamath Siskiyou Fire Reports: (Click on these links to view) 2017 Salmon August Fire Report 2017 Eclipse Fire Report  The summer of 2017 was an epic fire season. The combination of widespread lightning storms and limited fire suppression resources led to significant fires throughout the region, especially in remote areas. In the remote backcountry of the Klamath River, fires burned for many months. The lack of resources and minimal homes at risk allowed fire crews to “loose herd” the fires into the Wilderness where they burned largely without suppression efforts. The result was a series of vast Wilderness fires with positive fire effects and a characteristic mosaic of mixed-severity fire. The Island Fire began deep in the Marble Mountains Wilderness Area on June 25, 2017...

This beautiful, old, fire-adapted forest at the headwaters of Rocky Gulch above North Applegate Road was proposed for logging in the Savage Murph Timber Sale. The unit has been canceled, along with the over one mile of new road construction proposed to provide logging access. For the last year, Klamath Forest Alliance (KFA) has been working with local conservation partners to oppose the Pickett West Timber Sale, a massive timber project proposed by the Grants Pass BLM. The original Pickett West Timber Sale proposed to log thousands of acres of old forest on the Wild & Scenic Rogue River, in the mountains above Selma, Oregon and in the Applegate Valley around Wilderville, Murphy and North Applegate. KFA has been opposing this sale, by conducting extensive field monitoring of proposed timber sale units and submitting extensive public comments, appeals and administrative protests. We worked very closely with local, grassroots, conservation partners, Applegate...

The Chetco River near Redwood Bar The Chetco River is one of the wildest, most spectacular and most diverse rivers in the West. In fact, 66% of the Chetco River watershed flows through remote wilderness and roadless backcountry. The fisheries and water quality of the Chetco River are fed by the countless wild streams flowing through the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and the surrounding wildlands. The fisheries of the Chetco River are among the most important on the Oregon Coast and they are currently threatened by post-fire logging on both private and federal land.  In contrast to much of the river basin, the lower Chetco River near Brookings, Oregon is far from pristine. In many locations, private timber interests and federal land managers have scalped whole mountainsides, and in some cases, whole watersheds of old-growth timber. The result has been high road densities, vast plantation forests, and simplified ecosystems highly susceptible to stand-replacing fire. The lower...