Freemont-Winema National Forest Service News
The Fremont-Winema National Forest lowered the fire danger to Moderate, Industrial Fire Protection Level to I, and lifted Public Use Restrictions. As of the week of Oct. 20, Fire Season has not yet been lifted. The Pacific Northwest Region of the U.S. Forest Service has declared a temporary pause of prescribed burning by Forest Service units. The temporary pause will allow fire managers to plan for the evaluation of processes and the status of resources to learn from recent fires, especially given the length and continuing fire conditions the Pacific Northwest has experienced. The pause does not apply to partners or cooperators.
Lomakatsi Restoration Project held a graduation ceremony for the latest cohort of Lomakatsi’s Inter-tribal Youth Ecological Forestry Training Program on October 1st. Officials from the Klamath Tribes, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Oregon Department of Forestry were in attendance. Lomakatsi Inter-Tribal Youth Ecological Forestry crews played a vital role in reducing fuels in and around the wildland-urban interface near the communities of Chiloquin and Sprague River, and worked with District Rangers to accomplish manual and mechanical fuels reduction, enabling both pile and broadcast prescribed fire.
A lawsuit placed by Oregon Wild and Wildearth Guardians against the U.S. Forest Service, which placed a pause on the Baby Bear, Bear Wallow and South Warner projects, was overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing the Forest to continue with fuels thinning and stand improvements in those areas. The lawsuit was regarding the Fremont-Winema National Forest’s use of a regulation known as “categorical exclusion 6” of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), under which certain timber projects are not subject to NEPA analysis as long as they promote forest health and don’t involve herbicide spraying or more than a mile of road building. The appellate ruling said, “The text of CE-6 and the examples it contains do not support a finding of an implied size or acreage limitation,” which will allow work to continue.
Benjamin Wilson is the Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Forest Service.
