A8
LOCAL
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Wallowa County commissioners get forest health update
Grazing
USFS offi cials
discuss forest
management
Commissioner
Todd
Nash, a rancher who often
addresses natural resource
issues for the commission-
ers, said he hopes to see
more grazing allowed in the
region.
“I don’t want to see that
become a vacant allotment,”
he said.
Watrud sought to reas-
sure the commissioners.
“Grazing is something
that’s highly important,” he
said. “To further highlight
the importance of grazing
management, the Umatilla
National Forest is going to
be bringing on a grazing
manager to provide more
structure and clear manage-
ment of that for our grazing
program.”
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — Just
over a year after the out-
break of the Elbow Creek
Fire, offi cials from the
Umatilla National Forest
gave an update on ongoing
forest management, includ-
ing restoration of the nearly
21,000 acres that burned to
the Wallowa County Board
of Commissioners on
Wednesday, July 20.
Forest Supervisor Eric
Watrud, Public Aff airs Offi -
cer Darcy Weseman and
District Ranger Susan Piper
of the Pomeroy Ranger
District gave the presenta-
tion, which included work-
books that showed maps
and projections on possible
timber harvests in the next
few years.
Commission
Chair-
woman Susan Roberts said
the board was eager to hear
the offi cials’ update.
“We’re eager to hear
Firebreaks
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
From left, Eric Watrud, supervisor of the Umatilla National Forest; Susan Piper, district ranger of the Pomeroy Ranger District;
and Darcy Weseman, public aff airs offi cer for the Umatilla forest, discuss ongoing forest management eff orts Wednesday,
July 20, 2022, with the Wallowa County commissioners.
about the Elbow (Creek
Fire) area,” she said.
Piper told how the
aff ected area is already
being revitalized. Salvage
and other timber sales are
being planned. She said
Heartwood Biomass in
Wallowa was one of the
purchasers of a timber sale
amounting to about two
million board feet of both
saw logs and non-saw logs.
She said a couple more
sales will be coming out of
the area. The second one
will be in 2023 estimated at
3.5 million board feet and a
third one is about 2.5 mil-
lion board feet.
“Several of the sales
she mentioned are from
our regular green timber
program,” Watrud said.
“The fi rst one she men-
tioned is related to the fi re
so that would be consid-
ered more salvage. With
last year being a big fi re
year, there were more acres
that burned on the Uma-
tilla National Forest since
it became a national for-
est in 1908. That’s not a
giant surprise since we all
remember the heat dome
in June of last year. You
can still see the damage on
trees and plants in people’s
yards around here.”
A heat dome occurs
when a persistent region
of high pressure traps heat
over an area.
“One of the success sto-
ries even though it was such
a big fi re season in terms of
kinds of fi res in the future.”
Forest management has
been considered key to mit-
igating losses to fi res, they
said.
“In the intervening
15-plus years, they were
able to harvest about 78
million board feet, and they
were able to do active graz-
ing management, they were
able to do fuels breaks,
“FIRES ARE PART OF THE
LANDSCAPE, BUT IF WE CAN TRY TO
FOCUS AND DIRECT THE AREAS OF
IMPACTS THAT FIRES HAVE, WE’LL
BE A LOT MORE SUCCESSFUL.”
— Eric Watrud, supervisor of the Umatilla National Forest
acres, was the impacts of
those fi res,” Watrud said.
“A large portion of the fi re
was in the Wenaha-Tucan-
non Wilderness and we
were able to help keep it
confi ned in that area.
“Then the portion of
the Lick Creek Fire that
was outside the wilderness
was an area that had been
actively managed over the
past 15 years in particular
… the Forest Service made
a very deliberate decision to
do a lot of active manage-
ment to help prepare and
mitigate the eff ects of those
proscribed fi re, thinning,
commercial timber sales,”
Watrud said. “What that
yielded — in addition to
helping to support the local
community and support
infrastructure in the area
— is that when those fi res
occurred, they were much
more manageable and safer
to manage. The fi re teams
had options about where
they could put in their fi re-
breaks and to do that in a
way that has a much higher
probability of success and
that was safer for the fi re-
fi ghters themselves.”
Another
management
tool is the creation of roads
in the forests that can serve
as ready-made fi rebreaks.
Nash asked how such roads
had helped.
“It was something that,
when the fi re teams came in
… these were preplanned as
being strategic fi rebreaks,”
Watrud said. “They showed
up on the ground and (could
see) that this will work.
Especially with Lick Creek,
in particular, it was such a
fast-moving fi re after that
heat dome eff ect that they
wouldn’t have had time oth-
erwise. So it really was a
success story.”
The future
Weseman handed out
workbooks complete with
data, maps and other infor-
mation on the Umatilla’s
forest management plans.
“You can see that what
the fi re eff ects were is
totally diff erent in that land-
scape,” she said, adding that
the Forest Service has just
fi nished a video on the fi re
that includes drone footage.
“It’s pretty neat to see
how the landscape’s come
back,” she said. “We’ll be
sharing that, too.”
The USFS offi cials
emphasized that further
analysis and planning is
and will continue to be
underway to best avoid
catastrophic damage from
wildfi res.
“Fires are part of the
landscape, but if we can try
to focus and direct the areas
of impacts that fi res have,
we’ll be a lot more success-
ful,” Watrud said. “So, we
are going to continue to use
that authority, as well.”
ODFW reports more wolf depredations
Chieftain staff
WALLOWA COUNTY
— Three cases of wolves
killing livestock in East-
ern Oregon were reported
by the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife in the
ODFW’s Livestock Depre-
dation Investigation Report
on Tuesday, July 19.
One of the three was in
the Grouse Flats area of
Wallowa County, accord-
ing to the report. On July 6,
agents of a rancher discov-
For more information contact Andy Marcum at 541-426-4543 ext. 1206 or
Teresa Smergut at 541-263-2283. Please RSVP to Andy Marcum by August 1st
to Andy Marcum - Email: AMarcum@co.wallowa.or.us
ered the carcasses of three
yearling cows on a 160-acre,
private pasture. Two of the
carcasses consisted of scat-
tered bones and were esti-
mated to have died approx-
imately a week prior to the
investigation. The third car-
cass was mostly intact and
estimated to have died about
36 hours prior to the ODFW
investigation.
It was confi rmed as a
wolf kill, while the other
two were considered possi-
ble wolf kills or unknown.
Union County ranchers
also reported depredations
on July 15 in the Palmer
Junction area and July 17 in
the Five Points Creek area.
Both were confi rmed as
wolf kills.
The July 15 incident was
attributed to the Balloon
Tree pack, while the July 17
incident was attributed to the
Five Points pack.
Three other confi rmed
wolf kills were reported July
12, 15 and 17 in Klamath
County.