Forest Service Retirees Concerned About Biscuit Fire Area
July 20, 2004


Contact: John Marker 541-352-6154 or jf37m@aol.com

The debate about salvage logging of the Biscuit burn is an unfortunate distraction from the needs of destroyed and damaged forest landscape, and the well being of Oregon's people and forests. Discussion should be on how best to help aid and accelerate the healing process, and reduce the damage potential of the next fire that will occur.

Careful and timely salvage is good management. Not wasting a valuable resource is part of our culture. However, both are secondary to the need to reduce fuel before the next fire. The timber industry is not salivating to log the burn. The critical areas to be salvaged and reduce fuels are only 5% of the burn. The removal of some dead trees is essential to the long term protection of the land.

We are retired Forest Service professionals with strong personal interests in the fire area's future. We have spent a great deal of time reviewing fire damage reports and recommendations for restoration. We have visited the burn and talked with Forest Service and other professionals about the area's future. We evaluated this information based upon our personal experience with forest rehabilitation.

If the arguments about managing the Biscuit recovery continue to focus on the red herring of salvage logging rather than healing and protection, the future for this landscape and the life it supports is grim.

The continuation of the 25 year philosophical war over management of the Siskiyou National Forest obscures the real restoration issues, and opportunities to aid ecosystems. In our opinion the priority is protection of watersheds for their importance to people, vegetation and wildlife, including salmon and spotted owl habitat. This priority often is lost in the harping about salvage logging.

Critical to future citizens of Oregon, including our grandkids, will be water, even here in the rainy Northwest. An estimated 4 million Oregonians at the end of the century will be depending upon healthy forest watersheds. Not to use good science and good management to produce clean and plentiful water for the future is unconscionable.

The fire history of Southwestern Oregon tells us a major fire will strike the Biscuit area within a decade or so with the potential to further ravage land hard hit by the Biscuit Fire and 1987 Silver fire.

Reducing risk of damaging fire requires management of vegetation, including trees, to lower fire intensity and resistance to control. It is imperative in key areas to keep dead trees from becoming giant match sticks.

For decades public debate about uses of the National Forests has raged, and the result is decision gridlock leaving forest lands vulnerable to damage and destruction from fire, insect, disease, human abuse and noxious plants.

The goal should be to provide future generations a legacy of healthy forests. Current objections to repairing the land, based more upon conjecture and mythology than fact, will not help achieve this goal. We owe the grandkids better.

Signed:

Dave Jay, Wendall Jones, John Marker, Ron McCormick, Doug Porter, Ted Stubblefield, Dave Trask
 

See next page for information about signers

Background about Forest Service Retirees Concern for the Biscuit Burn

July 20.2004

This statement of concern about the future of the Biscuit Burn was prepared by a group of U.S. Forest Service retirees with serious apprehensions about the future of this large area of land burned by Biscuit Fire. We are frustrated by the endless conflict over healing the land. In our opinion, the current battle is not about saving the land, but control of this public property by some with a very narrow view of the public's right to benefit from the many values this land can provide for current and future generations.

This statement has not been reviewed by or shared in advance with current Forest Service officials.

We are:

David Jay, Retired Deputy Regional Forester, Pacific Southwest Region
Wendall Jones, Retired Regional Director of Timber Management, Pacific Northwest Region
John Marker, Retired Regional Director of Public Affairs, Pacific Northwest Region
Ron McCormick, Retired Forest Supervisor, Siskiyou National Forest
Ted Stubblefield, Retired Forest Supervisor, Gifford Pinchot National Forest
David Trask, Retired Regional Director of Engineering, Pacific Northwest Region
Doug Porter, Retired Forest Engineer, Mt Hood National Forest and National Incident Commander

Our Email addresses are:

Jay: dej@worldaccessnet.com
Jones: wendallj@verizon.net
Marker: jf37m@aol.com
McCormick: roncarol@uci.net
Porter: dport7@juno.com
Stubblefield: pokey@pacifier.com
Trask: dapam56@earthlink.net

John Marker can be contacted for more information about our concern or about the retirees signing it. Because of the current highly emotional controversy over Biscuit we have omitted residential information for privacy reasons.