The western United States is home to many woodpecker species that are strongly associated with recently disturbed forests, including post wildfire and post-beetle outbreaks. When managing these landscapes, managers must balance providing habitat for woodpeckers considered species of conservation concern with conducting salvage logging sales that generate economic revenue for the surrounding communities.

Yellow cedars are suited to damp coastal Alaska. So what are they doing in the desert? Fire scientists recently discovered that hundreds of the older cedar trees here had lived through past ground fires before dying in the backburn, suggesting the species may be more resilient than previously thought.

Wildfire has historically played an important role in the health and structure of Oregon's dry forests. Prescribed fire is a valuable tool used to restore forest health, increase firefighter safety, and better protect nearby human resources in these fire-adapted landscapes.

Nothing is simple when it comes to federal lands management. But in order to thin fire-prone forests — and to break legal and ideological gridlock — national forests in the Pacific Northwest are supporting collaborations with formerly adversarial interests.

In the summer of 2018, Blue Mountains Forest partners and OSU 4-H Association hosted Natural Resources Camp in Grant County. Click for pictures from the fun!

The remote rural community of John Day, Oregon, is enjoying a restoration renaissance. Restoration work has become an economic engine for the community: Careful thinning of smaller trees increases forest resilience while providing additional material for local industry. Community leaders hope that more jobs will give the younger generation a reason to stay in, or come back to, the community.

For a millennium, surface fires burned thousands of acres of ponderosa pine and dry mixed conifer forests in the southern Blue Mountains every year. The BMFP is working to address a number of barriers to increased use of prescribed fire, including government regulations that limit smoke emissions from prescribed fire.

Our partners at the Northwest Fire Science Consortium, which works to accelerate the awareness, understanding, and adoption of wildland fire science, recently prepared this video about the Canyon Creek wildfire that burned on the Malheur National Forest in 2015.  The video discusses the wildfire, the effect on local communities, and the aftermath of the fire, including the restoration activities proposed for the Canyon Creek watershed.

Efforts by diverse stakeholders to reach consensus on contentious forest management issues have paid off — again.

Three visiting researchers will speak at a workshop and field tour on post-fire management, sponsored by the Blue Mountains Forest Partners and the Northwest Fire Science Consortium. The events will review the current science surrounding snags on the landscape, post-fire habitat and woodpeckers, soil impacts, and management actions to enhance forest health after fires.

Local foresters and land managers went into export mode last week, providing lessons in restoration and collaboration to a contingent of visitors who will take the information home to 14 foreign countries. The visitors were in Grant County May 6-8 as part of the International Seminar on Forest Landscape Restoration.

Collaboration that kept the John Day sawmill open may be a model as industry, agencies and environmental groups strive for a forest policy that everyone can live with. The unexpected collaboration of industry, environmentalists and government agencies that saved mill jobs in Oregon’s Grant County could be a model for restoration forest policy elsewhere.

Restoration efforts on the Malheur National Forest are getting a vote of confidence from the top. Leslie Weldon, deputy chief of national forest systems for the Forest Service, recently approved an expansion of the Southern Blues Restoration Coalition’s Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLR) boundaries.