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Wednesday, August 5, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Nugget Newspaper Crossword
WILDFIRE:
Projects help protect
Sisters Country
By Jacqueline E. Mathews, Tribune News Service
Continued from page 3
biologist, explained that a
small restoration project in /
Glaze Meadow built trust
and a collaborative spirit with
environmental groups that
helped get the major Sisters
Area Fuels Reduction Project
(SAFR) off the ground. SAFR
treated thousands of acres,
including the area that would
be hit by the Pole Creek Fire.
<First we did it on 1,200
acres, then we did it on 20,000
acres,= she said. <And SAFR
really saved Sisters.=
Fire manager Rod
Bonacker explained how that
happened. He was part of the
team that was trying to get
ahead of the spreading confla-
gration, building fire breaks at
night.
<Strategically, we needed
to stop the fire spreading east
and southeast,= he said.
When a moving wildfire
hits previously thinned and
treated areas, it tends to drop
to the ground and slow down,
giving firefighters an opportu-
nity to fight it safely and get
containment lines around it.
Areas treated in SAFR pro-
vided an opportunity for fire
crews.
<That9s where we elected
to do our work,= Bonacker
recalled. <We were essentially
linking those treated units that
we already had. We essen-
tially put a U-shaped control
line around the southeast and
the south end of the fire.=
Without those previously
treated areas, <we would have
had 10 times more work to
do,= Bonacker said.
In contrast to treated areas,
spots that were dense and
overgrown after decades of
fire suppression took a heavy
hit.
Just south of the area
where the field trip was held
is an area where the main fire
ran up against a fire crew9s
burnout. Where treated areas
withstand fire and come back
healthy and even stronger, the
wildfire created 100 percent
mortality in the overgrown
stand.
<You have a snag patch,=
Bonacker said.
How to get those treat-
ments done on the scale
required to truly enhance for-
est health and the safety of
local communities is a vexing
question for forest managers.
Retired Sisters District
Ranger Kristi Miller
explained that it takes several
years to prepare the environ-
mental analysis for a proj-
ect 4 and the public doesn9t
always like what they see in
a project 4 particularly the
prescribed burning that can
smudge up Sisters Country on
the first nice days of spring.
<Mostly what they don9t
like is the cutting of the trees
and the smoke in the air,=
Miller said.
However, she noted,
PHOTO BY JIM CORNELIUS
Dense, untreated woodlands are
vulnerable to devastating fire.
Treated areas withstand fire well
and slow its progress.
Sisters has seen the devastat-
ing smoke impacts of weeks
of uncontrolled wildfire 4
and prescribed fire and thin-
ning is a small price to try to
avoid that.
<In Central Oregon, it9s
not a matter of if you9re going
to have fire move across your
landscape, it9s when,= Miller
said. <It9s better to control
when you have fire and how
much smoke you put into the
air than to let Mother Nature
do it.=
Chang said that citizens
should prod their elected
officials to advocate more
strongly for federal funding
for fuels-reduction projects.
<We often hear from
elected officials that environ-
mental review is the hold-up,=
Chang said. <The big chal-
lenge is not environmental
review. We need our elected
officials advocating for that
funding from Congress. We
are ready to go on the work.
What we need is a Marshall
Plan for funding to get this
done.=
Chang is running to unseat
Phil Henderson from the
Deschutes County Board of
Commissioners. Henderson,
who represents the County
on the Deschutes Forest
Collaborative, says that fund-
ing isn9t the crux of the issue.
He said he would be happy
to advocate for funding from
Congress if the Forest Service
needs that support 4 but he
sees the bottleneck in another
area: limitations on the num-
ber of days when the Forest
Service can burn.
<That9s the big bugaboo,=
he said. <It9s not having the
resources, it9s having the days
to do it. <I don9t really think
our problem& is really a
shortage of dollars to do the
treatment. We can9t do the
treatments we have.=
Chang acknowledged that
the coronavirus pandemic and
the economic fallout from it
could have as yet unforeseen
impact on funding. But he
noted that forest restoration
has been used in the past as
economic stimulus.
He believes the work can
provide jobs and is a long
term investment in the health
of forests and communities
like Sisters.
<This is a great time to be
advocating for these funds,=
he said.
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