Chainsaws were buzzing along Grants Pass’ Cathedral Hills Trail System this week, part of a 240-acre fuels reduction project meant to reduce the risk of wildfire amid warnings from climatologists.
Workers with Grayback Forestry cut down small-diameter trees — below 8 inches for hardwoods like oak — and piled the timber to be dried out and burnt in the fall.
Sean Hendrix, base manager at Grayback, said that while the trees are too wet to burn now without producing large amounts of smoke, they should be wetter. Oregon is coming off a dry winter and record-low snowpack.
“In fire and fuels we talk about fuel moisture,” he said. “Live fuel moisture just three weeks ago, they were 60%. In the middle of May they should be 160% saturated.” That means the weight of the water contained in a tree this time of year should be about 1.6 times the weight of its dry matter.
Hendrix's company has contracted with the Bureau of Land Management for this project. Grayback, one of dozens of forestry contractors in Southern Oregon, can employ over 200 workers for springtime fuels reduction and wildfire fighting in the summer.
He said that firefighting season isn’t too far away.wildfire
“It is starting earlier. If we wouldn't have got this last rain, they could be calling fire season now,” Hendrix said.
Fuels reduction projects are prioritized in areas near homes such as this trail system, said Bureau of Land Management public affairs officer Kyle Sullivan.
“We don't have all of the funding in the world to treat every acre every year,” he said. “Southwest Oregon has 22 out of the top 50 communities most at risk for wildland fire. And so we need to be strategic about where we're doing our fuels reduction treatments.”
The homeowners near this trail system are members of the Firewise USA program. The initiative from the National Fire Protection Association brings residents together to mitigate fire risks on their properties.
“There's a lot of people here in Southern Oregon and throughout the nation that don't really know their neighbor and Firewise brings a community together,” said Josephine County Firewise coordinator Mike McLaughlin. “They develop an action plan for three years, and they focus on not only their individual homes but potentially maybe road structures coming in.”
Workers first treated this area in 2009. But forests require follow-up fuels reduction as vegetation regrows.
Cathedral Hills Trail System visitors should check for closures during the project.
