Photo: Oregon Department of Forestry

The four-year effort by the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) to reforest the Santiam State Forest after the 2020 wildfires hit an important milestone this month when the last of more than 2.3 million trees were planted.

“This was a huge, challenging, and long-term project for ODF,” said John Walter, ODF’s State Forests Silviculturist. “We planted about ten times what we normally would in that time, with no additional staff being hired. The replanting was in steep, rocky, and difficult terrain along with high-altitude snowy conditions for much of the prime planting season. These safety concerns limited the time crews could plant the seedlings. Additionally, we did not have the budget to purchase that number of trees for the 5,600 acres that were scorched in the state forest from those 2020 fires. Even with all those hurdles, the ODF team worked together to make this happen quickly and effectively.”

And those were just the challenges of replanting, to get to the areas that needed to be reforested, more than 200 miles of roads had to be repaired; and burnt, dangerous trees along those roads had to be removed so crews could safely get to the areas.

The fastest and most cost-effective way to remove the dead trees and get the roads fixed was through special salvage logging timber sales.

“This was a gigantic work effort,” said Kyle Kaupp, Santiam Unit Forester for ODF’s North Cascade District. “We typically have a team of one unit manager and five foresters to set up our four-to-six sales for the year. In 2021, we had foresters come in from every district with State Forest ownership to help set up 18 salvage sales, develop road repair contracts, assist with reforestation, and help us through the planning process.”

Speed is critical for after fire timber salvage sales since the standing timber is only good for about three years before it is unusable.

“We had advertised timber volume of 50.5 million board feet for the sales which gave us net receivables of roughly $20.25 million,” said Kaupp.

This revenue would not have been recovered if not for the quick actions of the ODF team. The revenue from all state forests sales is split with approximately two thirds going to the county where the timber was harvested and one third going to ODF to manage state forests.

“Clackamas, Marion, and Linn counties all received more than typical years of regular harvests. The additional revenue was timely in that it helped the counties in their already monumental efforts to recover from those 2020 fires,” said Kaupp.

To access the sales areas and to get the salvaged timber out the roads needed to be inspected and repaired. “Many of our smaller road culverts, typically18-inches, are made from plastic and some of these melted from the intense heat of the wildfires,” said Kaupp. “If you don’t evaluate and replace the damaged ones you could get dangerous sinkholes in your roads. The roads are also critical to get to future wildfire starts to put them out quickly and to minimize future losses from fires.”

As the salvage logging was underway and roads repaired and improved, tree planting was taking place. However, there was still the challenge of paying for seedlings and crews to plant them.

“We received more than $1million from the non-profit American Forests,” said Walter. “All that funding went toward seedlings costs—we typically plant 360 seedlings per acre and then go back and replant if we do not have at least 200 trees per acre survive.”

Because of the rough terrain and lack of roads in some areas of the state forest the department also used a helicopter to aerial seed some nearly inaccessible parts of the forest.

“The challenge with that method is determining how effective your efforts are after a few years since those small seedlings can’t be seen through the other vegetation from our typical aerial surveys,” said Walter. “Our small on the ground sampling in areas we could get to saw a good survival rate considering the conditions.”

State forests are not just managed for economic benefits, but a concept called greatest permanent value. This takes into account economic, environmental, and social benefits to all Oregonians.

The social value of the Santiam was greatly reduced right after the fire as most trails and recreation areas were closed due to those dangerous hazard trees and road safety concerns.

“At the popular Shellburg Falls recreation area bridges, wooden steps and other infrastructure and the trees around the falls were wiped out by the fires,” said Joe Offer, ODF’s Recreation Manager for State Forests. “For the safety of our staff, we had to wait for the salvage logging and road repairs to finish before beginning work on recreation restoration projects.”

Once again there were no additional personnel or funding to get recreation sites useable again.

“We relied heavily on volunteer groups and adults in custody work crews from the Department of Corrections to rebuild and realign trails and build new structures,” said Offer.

Thanks to those cooperative efforts, the popular Butte Creek Falls and Shellburg Falls recreation areas opened this year providing access into some of the forest’s most loved facilities and trails.

“The only areas that are still closed for safety reasons are the Sardine Creek and Rhody Lake areas. However, we’re working diligently to open both in the near future,” said Offer.

On the environmental side the 2020 burns impacted wildlife and their habitat.

“Many people do not realize that the landscape after a wildfire is not a monolithic black completely burned area,” said Mike Davis, state forests Wildlife Biologist. “It’s more of a patchwork type of landscape depending on the severity of the fire in each area. There might be completely a burned area, then a small stand of healthy trees that survived, then trees that look alive but die in a few years.”

In the middle of that patchwork the biologists were excited to see the first northern spotted owl in the area since 2020. The spotted owl is a threatened species the department monitors throughout all the state forests in western Oregon and Sun Pass State Forest in eastern Oregon.

“We first saw the owl in 2023 and worked with our contract surveyors to capture and put leg bands on the female owl. It was found again this year but doesn’t appear to be nesting,” said Davis.

Nearly half of the Santiam was burned by the fires including critical habitat areas for owls.

“We were excited to see the owl make a return—even if only one. Our hope is it will find a mate and nest next year,” said Davis.

Under the future state forests habitat conservation plan (HCP) the department is in the process of applying for with federal agencies to ensure both continued timber harvest and protection of threatened and endangered species for the next 70 years, the Santiam will provide a unique research opportunity.

As part of the HCP, the department will develop and manage habitat conservation areas (HCAs) to maintain and improve habitats of key fish and wildlife species.

“We'll be implementing landscape-level passive acoustic monitoring to document changes in northern spotted owl use throughout our habitat conservation areas on Santiam State Forest,” said Vanessa Petro, state forests Lead Wildlife Biologist.

This process uses remote recording devices to capture wildlife vocalizations to more accurately determine what species are in an area.

“Conducting this type of survey in the Santiam will allow us to document differences in spotted owl occupancy relative to the burn severity patterns within the Beachie Creek fire perimeter. It will also help us better understand how wildlife species are responding to habitat treatments such as thinning that will accelerate the development of late-seral forest characteristics we desire in the HCAs such as large diameter snags and down wood, in addition to a multi-layered forest canopy.

Another species ODF will be studying is the Oregon slender salamander, which is a federal species of concern found only in the Cascade Range in Oregon.

“We will also be conducting Oregon slender salamander surveys to better understand their distribution and occurrence on the Santiam,” said Petro “Our long-term monitoring will provide us a better understanding on how their occupancy and abundance is influenced by existing habitat conditions and our forest management activities.”

Wildfires like the ones in 2020 fueled by strong East winds can move very fast and inflict their damage in a few hours; however, recovery can take years.

“I want to thank all the staff, volunteers, contractors, partners and community members for their hard work and patience while we worked to restore their forest these last four years,” said Mike Wilson, ODF’s State Forest Division Chief. “This replanting is an important milestone, but we still have more work to do to make sure the Santiam State Forest recovers and remains accessible to all Oregonians.”

Source: Oregon Department of Forestry