Oregon Completes Santiam Forest Reforestation After 2020 Wildfires; 2.3 Million Seedlings Planted

On Tuesday, the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) reported that its four-year effort to reforest the Santiam State Forest after the 2020 wildfires hit an important milestone this month when the last of more than 2.3 million trees were planted.

“This was a huge, challenging, and long-term project for ODF,” said John Walter, ODF’s State Forests Silviculturist. “We planted about ten times what we normally would in that time, with no additional staff being hired. The replanting was in steep, rocky, and difficult terrain along with high-altitude snowy conditions for much of the prime planting season. These safety concerns limited the time crews could plant the seedlings. Additionally, we did not have the budget to purchase that number of trees for the 5,600 acres that were scorched in the state forest from those 2020 fires. Even with all those hurdles, the ODF team worked together to make this happen quickly and effectively.”

And those were just the challenges of replanting, to get to the areas that needed to be reforested, more than 200 miles of roads had to be repaired; and burnt, dangerous trees along those roads had to be removed so crews could safely get to the areas. The fastest and most cost-effective way to remove the dead trees and get the roads fixed was through special salvage logging timber sales.

“This was a gigantic work effort,” said Kyle Kaupp, Santiam Unit Forester for ODF’s North Cascade District. “We typically have a team of one unit manager and five foresters to set up our four-to-six sales for the year. In 2021, we had foresters come in from every district with State Forest ownership to help set up 18 salvage sales, develop road repair contracts, assist with reforestation, and help us through the planning process.”

Speed is critical for after fire timber salvage sales since the standing timber is only good for about three years before it is unusable. “We had advertised timber volume of 50.5 million board feet for the sales which gave us net receivables of roughly $20.25 million,” said Kaupp. This revenue would not have been recovered if not for the quick actions of the ODF team. The revenue from all state forests sales is split with approximately two thirds going to the county where the timber was harvested and one third going to ODF to manage state forests.