Reckless Logging Continues to Increase Wildfire Risk for Mountain Towns
By Jeff Stone
Over four million acres burned in California in 2020, and 2021 is shaping up to be worse. Despite this unprecedented climate disaster, CalFire is poised to increase wildfire risk for residents of Dunsmuir, Mt. Shasta City, and Castella by approving several new Timber Harvest Plans (THPs), which would use unnecessarily dangerous even-aged logging methods such as clearcutting.
Within a four-mile radius of the City of Dunsmuir, nearly 10,000 acres (about 30% of the land area) have either already been clearcut within the last 20 years or will be in the next few years. California officials and state agencies have repeatedly called for additional thinning to remove underbrush and small trees to reduce wildfire risk, but they do nothing to stop logging plans that create the same dense small trees. These THPs are especially dangerous because they are so close to towns and hence will expose residents to increased fire danger. One may remember that the 2018 Carr and Delta Fires that threatened these same towns burned through plantations. This year, large fires have already burned both north and south of Dunsmuir.
Shasta-Cascade Timberlands, the Australian multinational company that owns the land, is prioritizing the short-term economic benefits of clearcutting over the potentially devastating effects on local communities.
Better Forest Management Can Reduce Wildfire Risk
After clearcutting or other forms of even-aged management harvest, a conifer plantation is established. These 20- to 30-acre plantations of dense trees are easily ignited and burn fast and hot. Their ambient temperature is often hotter than nearby diverse, shaded forests, and there are no large trees to break wind speed. Last year’s Bear and Creek Fires were made more dangerous by the plantations in their path, and the worst fire in California history, the Paradise Camp Fire, also burned through plantations that were established after a fire that occurred ten years previously. Even-aged management also requires herbicide spraying that results in decreased biodiversity and degraded water quality.
Uneven-aged management is less risky and significantly more sustainable than clearcutting or other kinds of even-aged management. With single-tree selection, individual trees are harvested and a stand of different ages and species of trees remain. With group selection harvest, only small areas are cleared and then replanted. Unlike even-aged management, uneven-aged management produces a forest of trees of various sizes, ages, and species; these stands are less vulnerable to fire.
Dangers of Proposed Timber Harvest Plans
CalFire and other state agencies are currently considering approving the Rook, Hedge, and East Soda Timber Harvest Plans, within a few miles of Dunsmuir, which, along with nearby Mt. Shasta City and Castella, are near Mt. Shasta in northern California. These THPs include 792 acres of even-aged management that will result in tree plantations which will increase fire risk for nearby towns in an already high fire risk area. In addition, there are at least two more THPs that will soon be proposed nearby. Embers from a wildfire can easily be blown two miles into nearby towns, especially if the weather is hot and the winds strong, conditions we are seeing with increasing frequency.
Instead of clearcutting, these Timber Harvest Plans should deploy selection logging, by which some old trees are removed, and some are left behind, with the goal of retaining a canopy of at least 60%. Such a harvest would help to ensure that the remaining forest maintains a diversified forest structure with older, fire-resistant trees, higher humidity, and lower temperatures and wind speeds, keeping it less vulnerable to wildfire than a plantation.
The Bottom Line
Given the increasing impacts of climate breakdown, which were so evident during the 2020 fire season and are sadly continuing with the current unprecedented heatwave, any project that results in large tree plantations — especially near vulnerable communities — must be opposed.
Homeowners are being asked to change where they build, use non-flammable building materials, and maintain 100 feet of defensible space, and even so, are facing the loss of their home insurance policies. Shouldn’t the timber industry take some responsibility for not putting the public and other forest owners at risk? Shouldn’t CalFire protect public safety and require all logging plans to decrease, not increase, fire risk to nearby communities?
What You Can Do
Please contact CalFire at reddingreviewinbox@fire.ca.gov and ask them to deny the Rook, Hedge, and East Soda THPs currently under consideration unless the potential fire hazard is reduced by requiring uneven-aged management. CalFire must also work with the local communities and Fire Safe Councils to ensure that local fire risk is reduced by current and future timber harvest.
This sample letter will help you get started:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y5OxlHT9jWcxHRjU82LI2QJUXHlMZXJFmS_clpFA3KI/edit?usp=sharing
Residents of Dunsmuir and Mt. Shasta City can also contact their mayors to ask them to take this issue seriously as an existential threat to their communities.
