A drought that has parched much of the West has Oregon officials concerned the state could face another summer of record blazes. “All signs point to a difficult 2022 fire season that will challenge our firefighting teams and the capacity of our response systems,” said Gov. Kate Brown.
BOISE — Recruiting Idaho wildland firefighters is getting easier. The Legislature in March raised starting firefighter pay from $12.55 to $15 an hour and instituted hazard pay that allows fire…
A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held on May 20.
A contract wildland firefighter who was killed by a falling tree in California last week has been brought home by a convoy of fellow firefighters. The convoy escorted the body of 26-year-old D…
LONGVIEW, Wash. — Timber company Weyerhaeuser will pay $600,000 after reaching a settlement with conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper, despite denying allegations it had broken Washington s…
Firefighting managers in northern New Mexico say the flames of the largest wildfire burning in the U.S. have become unstoppable as they advance and burn trees sucked dry of moisture over decad…
ROSEBURG, Ore. — The timber industry may be synonymous with the Northwest in the popular imagination, but the economic reality is the industry’s center of gravity has quietly shifted to the South.
An Oregon man charged with setting an arson fire in the southwest part of the state that damaged more than a dozen properties has been sentenced to 11 years in prison. KTVL reports Michael Bak…
SISTERS, Ore. — The Deschutes National Forest is planning a project that could see forest thinning and prescribed fire treatment on 19,437 acres in the Green Ridge area 13 miles north of Siste…
Drought last year means more bark beetle activity this year, an expert says. More tree mortalities are expected due to Western pine beetles, Douglas fir beetles and pine engraver beetles.
Free permits for burning debris, croo residue required outside city limits.
The endangered California condor has returned to the skies over the state's far northern coast redwood forests for the first time in more than a century. Two captive-bred birds were released T…
Northwest precipitation prompts rangeland concern.
Tech giant Microsoft is investing in carbon credits generated by an Oregon wood products company to help reduce, and eventually erase, its carbon footprint.
SEATTLE — Private electric utilities in the Pacific Northwest are planning tens of millions of dollars in upgrades to reduce the risk that their power lines could spark wildfires during extrem…
Ever since Gwen Trice was a young girl growing up in La Grande, she wanted to move to nearby Wallowa County. Whenever she visited, often as a teenager, she felt something powerful was drawing …
Too much rain and snow fell during April, preventing U.S. Forest Service officials from beginning their ambitious plans for prescribed burning on parts of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest i…
U.S. District Judge David Estudillo in Seattle has rejected an environmental group’s arguments that the South Fork Stillaguamish Vegetation Project was approved in violation of the Northwest F…
The Shared Wildfire Risk Management tool tracks federal, state and local projects to increase coordination and prioritize spending and should be available to the public later this year.
SEATTLE — President Joe Biden is taking steps to restore national forests that have been devastated by wildfires, drought and blight, using an Earth Day visit to Seattle to sign an executive o…
With a major boost in funding from last year’s federal infrastructure bill, the U.S. Forest Service can’t afford to be paralyzed by disagreements over public lands management, the agency's top…
JUNCTION CITY, Ore. — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown last week visited Antiquum Farm, a Willamette Valley vineyard and livestock operation owned by Stephen Hagen and his wife, Niki. After the tour, sh…
As wildfires intensify across the West, researchers are studying how scorched trees could lead to a faster snowmelt and end up disrupting water supplies. Without a tree canopy, snow is exposed…
Oregon’s Klamath County has again failed to sufficiently analyze the impacts of a wastewater facility on 211 acres zoned for forestland. The state’s Land Use Board of Appeals has ordered the c…
The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality is accepting applications through July 15 for federal grants to help fund projects that address water pollution from non-point sources such as agr…
WASHINGTON, D.C. — USDA will invest $31.1 million in 15 landscape restoration projects using Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds and annual appropriations. The purpose of the projects is to re…
The La Pine, Ore., High School students — Central Oregon’s only active team of Future Natural Resource Leaders — spent this week preparing for their upcoming competition in Sweet Home. Student…
PORTLAND — Construction of new “mass timber” buildings has climbed over the past decade, but experts believe the demand for such structures is still in its infancy.
BEND, Ore. — T2 Inc., a Sweet Home-based timber company operating near Bend, reported that its equipment was damaged by vandals at a thinning project in the Deschutes National Forest.
A California timber baron who is the nation's largest landowner has jumped into Oregon politics with big contributions to campaigns seeking to wrest control of state government from Democrats.
Gov. Kate Brown says the transfer of the Elliott State Forest to Oregon State University will resolve a long-running controversy and opens the way to a different future for the south coast acreage.
Environmental groups have failed to convince a federal judge to block two logging and fuel reduction projects on 8,000 acres of public forestland in Southern Oregon. U.S. District Judge Ann Ai…
Oregon will soon have nearly 60 cameras across the state perched on cell phone towers, old fire towers and mountaintops, watching for forest fires across the state.
An Idaho forest project that includes 1,700 acres of logging within a 12,000-acre parcel can proceed despite an Endangered Species Act violation, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge…
BOISE — Drought and low snowpacks in the West likely mean an early start to wildfire season, meteorologists at the National Interagency Fire Center predict. “Due to below-average, and in some …
The Oregon Farm Bureau is a member of a coalition of 12 businesses and trade groups challenging the state's Climate Protection Program in court. The coalition has filed a petition for legal review.
Aims to protect ag, timber, energy, mining sectors. Has generated opposition.
A federal appeals court has again rejected arguments that an experiment aimed at removing barred owls to help threatened spotted owls runs afoul of environmental laws.
BOISE — Incident meteorologists are key teammates for wildfire foresters and analysts, who come up with game plans for battling the massive blazes. An overarching goal is to let incident manag…
Two public meetings will be held in April, and the public can submit written comments.
SALEM — A trio of bills that seek to end Oregon’s “timber wars” have won bipartisan support from state lawmakers, who confirmed the previously negotiated compromises by wide margins.
SALEM — The Oregon Senate has voted overwhelmingly in favor of new logging standards negotiated by timber and environmental groups under the Private Forest Accord compromise.
Drought, coupled with last year's heat waves, have weakened the health of forests across Oregon.
A large American flag served as the backdrop for a Capitol rally hosted by the grassroots group Oregon Natural Resource Industries, or ONRI, as speakers decried a growing number of government …
Oregon’s Douglas County must reconsider its decisions allowing new dwellings on forestland and creating a new zone for 20-acre rural home sites.
The fate of a $1 billion judgment against Oregon’s state government won by 14 counties may hinge on whether it needed their approval to make forest policy changes. The state tried to convince …
BOISE — The Idaho House Commerce & Human Resources Committee Feb. 21 endorsed a bill that would allow the state Department of Lands to provide hazard pay of up to 25% to its wildland firefighters.
Forest health will be a hot topic at Washington State University Extension's Forest Owner Winter School. It will be online Feb. 26. Registration is due before 5 p.m. Feb. 25.
The U.S. Forest Service has awarded $640 million in multi-year wildland firefighting contracts to eight Oregon forestry companies.
Environmental groups have filed another lawsuit to block post-wildfire salvage logging in Oregon's Umpqua River watershed. The complaint accuses the BLM of rushing through its analysis of the project.
Groups that have long been at odds on forest management issues have reached a consensus on goals and desired conditions that will frame how the U.S. Forest Service drafts land management plans…
JUNCTION CITY, Ore. — Solbere, a natural, protective coating that apple growers have long been spraying on orchards to prevent fruit from sunburning, is getting upgraded.
SALEM — Environmental advocates presented a united front with the timber industry while pitching new forestry regulations to Oregon lawmakers. The compromise deal would expand no-harvest buffe…
Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley are throwing their support behind a renewal of the long-term stewardship contract for the Malheur National Forest, although not necessarily with the same operator.
