May 29, 2025 HFHC News Round Up
Soaring Insurance Rates in the West Reflect a Growing Wildfire Crisis on Federal Lands (HFHC)
In many Western states, the federal government owns more land than anyone else. Yet it continues to struggle with the pace and scale of forest management. The U.S. Forest Service takes an average of 3.6 years to implement a project after completing environmental review. That’s not fast enough when entire communities are at risk. Meanwhile, a steady drumbeat of lawsuits from anti-forestry groups continues to delay or halt urgently needed projects. In places like Northern California, Arizona, and Oregon, these lawsuits have blocked fuel reduction efforts for years—leaving communities to face the consequences. The results are clear: longer, hotter fire seasons. More property loss. More smoke. Higher insurance rates. And greater financial pressure on families and rural economies.
President Trump calls for more logging on Federal lands (KATU)
Over 60% of forestland in Oregon is managed by the federal government. Amanda Sullivan-Astor, the forest policy manager for Associated Oregon Loggers, believes the increase in logging would benefit the state economically. “To grow economic development, to create opportunities for people to stay where they grew up, we see lots of that,” said Amanda Sullivan-Astor, the forest policy manager for Associated Oregon Loggers…One of the longstanding arguments to increase logging is because of the theory that it would prevent wildfires. Sullivan-Astor has a degree in forest management and says it would do just that. “We have way too much wood out in the forest when you think about how much is growing every year compared to how much is being removed through operations,” said Sullivan-Astor.
‘This is all about safety’: Sen. Wyden calls funding a top priority for 2025 local wildfire season (RV Times)
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden rounded out a multiple-day visit to Southern Oregon on Tuesday with a briefing from regional fire officials regarding the upcoming wildfire season. While fire season officially begins in Oregon on June 1, state and federal fire officials have spoken in recent weeks and again Tuesday to already evident hot and dry conditions in Southern Oregon that could make for an active 2025 season. Wyden was in town for several appearances and events this past week, including for his annual Jackson County town hall event at the Medford Armory on Sunday and for Memorial Day observances Monday at Eagle Point National Cemetery.
Gosar Emphasizes The Importance Of Forest Management To Combat The ‘Catastrophic Wildfire Crisis’ (Forbes)
Watch: During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) spoke about implementing effective and science-backed forest management strategies.
Sawmills act to relieve wildfire threat from Hurricane Helene debris (Fox News)
Sawmills are working to recycle trees blown down by Hurricane Helene to assist wildland firefighters while boosting domestic timber production. Many of the trees downed by the storm are usable, according to Johnny Evans, owner of EvAns Lumber Co. in Manchester, Tennessee. About 6% of the lumber produced at his facility comes from trees that fell during natural disasters. “It’s a resource that God gave us, and we need to recycle it instead of letting it rot into the ground,” Evans said. “If we don’t get those dead trees out of the forest, then you’re going to have a forest fire. Then it’s going to wipe out all your good timber as well as your dead timber.”
Court denies request to halt logging activity in Elwha Watershed (Peninsula Daily News)
The Clallam County Superior Court denied environmentalists’ request for an administrative stay on two local Department of Natural Resources parcels, although it granted a motion to compel information from the state agency. If the stay had been granted, it would have barred logging-related activities for 90 days on the parcels named Parched and Tree Well. The motion to compel will require the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to file administrative records relevant to the case by June 18 – a five-month delay from the original required date of Jan. 2. The logging rights for these two forests were bought by Oregon-based Murphy Company in December.
Amended Bill 3103-1 Would Hold ODF Accountable to Fulfill Its Promises on Sustainable Timber Sales (Cascade Policy Institute)
Over-promising and under-delivering has been the habit of Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) for decades, with businesses, counties, and towns struggling to weather the financial hardships of ODF’s inconsistent timber sales. House Bill 3103 with the -1 amendment seeks to address these concerns by requiring ODF to establish sustainable harvest levels (SHL) on state forest land and offer timber for sale at the SHL. According to the Council of Forest Trust Land Counties, in the 1930s and ’40s, thousands of acres were in county ownership due to abandonment and foreclosures. By 1939, the land in county ownership was over two million acres. Because they weren’t privately owned, the counties were not collecting property taxes, and forest fires had destroyed large amounts of income potential.
Oregon’s Elliott State Research Forest Habitat Conservation Plan Integrates Forest Management and Conservation Efforts (USFWS)
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued an Endangered Species Act incidental take permit to the Oregon Department of State Lands for its Elliott State Research Forest Habitat Conservation Plan. The permit covers incidental take of the threatened marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl associated with implementing the HCP over 80 years. The state voluntarily created the HCP to promote innovative forest research and timber production while ensuring the conservation of listed species and their habitats in the Elliott State Research Forest, located in Coos and Douglas counties. The incidental take permit provides consistency and management certainty for the landowner and the public while facilitating extended studies essential to understanding working forests.
Trump axes Biden-era climate guidance in NEPA reviews (Greenwire)
The Trump administration said Wednesday it will further truncate environmental reviews by eliminating Biden-era guidance to consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change when weighing new energy projects. The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality issued a notice in the Federal Register that it would end interim guidance first issued in 2023, which had directed agencies to consider environmental justice and climate policies in National Environmental Policy Act reviews. The move marks the latest step in President Donald Trump’s push to dramatically speed up the environmental review process and approval of energy projects. The Interior Department in April outlined a NEPA process that would allow some reviews to be completed in 14 to 28 days, a vast reduction from a process that typically takes up to two years. Last week it completed a NEPA review for an underground uranium mine in Utah in just 11 days. (Subscription Required)
Trump USDA nominee tussles with Forest Service over land use (E&E News PM)
The Trump administration’s nominee to oversee the Forest Service is facing a new dispute over his use of land managed by the agency. Michael Boren, the pick for Agriculture Department undersecretary for natural resources and environment, is clashing with the Forest Service for building a cabin and clearing land in the Sawtooth National Forest near Stanley, Idaho, according to agency correspondence and people familiar with the situation. The work on the property began before Boren was nominated earlier this year to the position, which requires Senate confirmation. But the dispute hasn’t been fully resolved, according to people who’ve discussed the matter with Forest Service officials in the past week. (Subscription Required)
Communication concerns reemerge over timber sale east of Astoria (Daily Astorian)
It’s been more than a year since Denise Moore received notice that surveying work was set to begin on the state forestlands adjacent to her Brownsmead property — visits, she eventually learned, would lay the groundwork for a 168-acre clearcut timber sale in her neighborhood. In the spring of 2024, Moore and other nearby residents sounded the alarms after discovering that the site near their homes, called Davis Ridge, had been proposed for harvest on the Oregon Department of Forestry’s Astoria District annual operations plan. Now, concerns have resurfaced over the latest development in a history of communication challenges with district forestry staff.
Forest Service: Tiger-Mill project includes 351 acres logged, more burned in city watershed (Union Bulletin)
Though there is more than 6,000 acres of commercial logging planned in the Tiger-Mill project area southeast of Walla Walla, only a sliver of that harvest will take place in the city’s watershed. In the Mill Creek Watershed, about 351 acres will be commercially logged, 2,562 will be thinned, and 16,262 have been analyzed for prescribed fire, Forest Service officials shared at a Tuesday, May 27, workshop with the Walla Walla City Council. The City Council hosted a workshop with the Forest Service after getting emails from residents and environmental groups who oppose the project, Public Works Director Ki Bealey said. The project has been in the works since 2023, and a work plan was approved in February. Bealey said the city’s partnership with the Forest Service goes back more than 100 years, and wildfire treatment and prevention has been a longtime priority for the city, along with protecting the city’s main water source, Mill Creek.
Birthplace of US forestry faces long recovery (Greenwire)
Around the turn of the 20th century, George Vanderbilt turned tens of thousands of acres of tired farmland and tattered woods into one of the country’s first experiments with professional forestry. Vanderbilt, a grandson of the shipping and railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, first came to Asheville in 1888 with his mother, who sought out the mountainous area to recuperate from a long bout with malaria. George built a 125,000-acre summer estate here that was completed in 1895. Much of that land later became the Pisgah National Forest. What remains in the family is the 8,000-acre luxurious Biltmore Estate, now going through one of the tougher tests since Vanderbilt’s time: remaking parts of the forest after Hurricane Helene flattened trees across entire hilltops. (Subscription Required)
California should end its emissions offset program, researchers say (Climatewire)
A California program that lets polluters avoid cutting a portion of their own carbon emissions by funding projects such as forest preservation is doing little to address climate change, researchers say in a new analysis. Two University of California, Berkeley, professors who wrote the May policy brief are urging state lawmakers to replace the program, known as offsets, as they look to extend California’s market-based system to cut carbon emissions. The cap-and-trade system requires California’s largest carbon emitters to pay the state pollution allowances in some cases for excessive emissions. But regulated emitters can buy up to 4 percent of what they owe carbon credits in one of the state-approved offset programs throughout the U.S. that are supposed to cut greenhouse gas pollution. Each credit is supposed to represent 1 ton of emissions avoided or abated. (Subscription Required)
Wildfire Smoke Makes Up Most of Particulate Matter in the Air of Reno, NV (Technology Networks)
With wildfires increasing in frequency, severity, and size in the Western US, researchers are determined to better understand how smoke impacts air quality, public health, and even the weather. As fires burn, they release enormous amounts of aerosols — the vaporized remains of burning trees and homes that enter the atmosphere and the air we breathe. Now, a new study dissects these aerosols and gases to pinpoint their potential effects on our health as well as the planet’s short and long-term weather.
Conservation Resources Announces Closing on Alabama Timberland Property; Adds 7,000 Acres to its Regenerative Forest Management (PRWeb)
Conservation Resource Partners (“Conservation Resources,” “CR,” or “the Firm”) announced today the April 30, 2025, closing on a timberland property in rural Alabama, adding approximately 7,000 acres to its regenerative timberland and farmland investments. The Firm is a leader in innovation by employing an impact-focused strategy that seeks to develop and monetize the positive portfolio attributes of timberland while enhancing environmental values of the properties in which it invests. Since its inception, Conservation Resources has raised over $1BB and invested in over 1MM acres of sustainably managed timberland and farmland.
Could Colorado be home to the BLM’s national headquarters — again? (CPR News)
President Donald Trump wants to move federal agencies out of Washington, DC, to cities where the cost of living is cheaper and closer to the everyday people affected by the government agency. If this story sounds familiar to Coloradans, that’s because it is. In his first term, Trump moved the Bureau of Land Management, the agency that oversees nearly 50 million acres of public land, to Grand Junction, which shocked many — even Robin Brown, who helped make the move happen. As the head of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership, she helped promote the longshot idea, first proposed by then-US Sen. Cory Gardner. By 2018, all of Colorado’s congressional delegation and the governor — Republicans and Democrats — vocally supported the move.
Wooden Nails Can Rival Metal Fasterners in Timber Buildings (Woodcentral)
Wooden nail connections could outperform metal fasteners when optimised for factors like nail diameter, sheathing material, and spacing, greatly assisting in rapidly assembling timber parts in prefab construction. That is according to a new Chinese study, which revealed that new and improved densified wooden nails could hold the key to improving the shear performance of timber walls and, importantly, offer a more durable and longer-lasting alternative to metal-based connectors. The study, “Lateral Resistance Performance of Wall-Frame Shear Walls with Wooden Nail Connections: Experimental and Finite Element Analysis,” conducted a series of full-scale loading tests on structural-grade spruce-pine-fir (SPF) oriented strand board (OSB) and structural plywood (SF) samples, all with varying panel thickness, spacing, and cap configuration.
Weyerhaeuser, Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance Partner for Fourth Year to Provide Mental Health Resources for Wildland Firefighters (PR Newswire)
Weyerhaeuser Company and Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance (FBHA) today announced an extension of their Fighting Fires Together campaign, a partnership that provides specialized mental health support for wildland firefighters and their families across the Pacific Northwest. Fighting Fires Together, now in its fourth year, addresses the often-overlooked mental health impacts of wildland firefighting in isolated, hazardous and highly stressful conditions. Through a free online resource hub, first responders can find specially designed content, including videos about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and suicide prevention, along with mental health tips, educational articles and contacts for occupationally aware support groups and counselors in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.
Redbuilt names new CEO (HBS Dealer)
Ted Osterberger has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of RedBuilt, an affiliate of Hampton Lumber, effective June 1, 2025. Osterberger succeeds Don Schwabe, who will retire later this year after 10 years of leadership at Redbuilt. Based in Boise, Idaho, RedBuilt provides engineered wood products and structural solutions. Osterberger currently serves as RedBuilt’s VP of Operations and brings over 25 years of industry experience to his new role.
Timber expo spotlights PA forest industry (River Reporter)
Pennsylvania’s nearly $22 billion forest products industry will be the focus of the 2025 Forest Products Equipment and Technology Exposition, June 6-7 at Penn State’s Ag Progress Days. Known as Timber 2025, the biennial trade exposition is aimed primarily at loggers, foresters, sawmill operators, value-added processors and forest landowners. The event is hosted by the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and the Pennsylvania Forest Products Association. Parking and admission are free.
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