The Klamath National Forest has released a Scoping Notice for the Seiad Restoration Thin Project, located on Johnny O’Neil Ridge, on the slopes above Seiad Valley in the Mid-Klamath River watershed. Seiad Valley is a small hamlet in a beautiful and narrow valley, and a community set among the steep, unforgiving habitats of the Siskiyou Crest. To the west, Seiad Creek drains the eastern margin of the Kangaroo Inventoried Roadless Area from the rusty serpentine slopes of Red Butte to Cook and Green Butte, and over to Cook and Green Pass. Here, rock, chaparral, and sparse Jeffrey pine woodlands are the dominant features, with old-growth mixed conifer forest hiding deep in the drainages. The area is known for its remote, highly diverse habitats, and relatively frequent backcountry wildfires. The Kangaroo Inventoried Roadless Area extends like a wall of rock and fire-swept chaparral rising from Highway 96 and the banks of the Klamath River, and from the bottomlands in Seiad Valley to the...

With the Trump Administration eroding our regulatory systems, undermining our environmental laws, and pressuring often all too willing federal land managers to increase timber production, mining, grazing and other forms of resource extraction and industrialization on our public lands, we are forced to push back. This requires a deep love and appreciation for these mountains, a strong connection to place, a dedication to the region, a commitment to the protection of the Klamath-Siskiyou, and a little bit of stubborn persistence. At Klamath Forest Alliance, a profound love for this region drives our work and an intimate relationship with these wildlands informs the positions we take, as well as the tenacity with which we advocate. True to the history of the organization, we have asserted ourselves as passionate, scrappy, and effective grassroots activists with deep ties to the region and a deep knowledge of the land around us. Each day we work for the wildlife, the watersheds, the...

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...