Oregon Wildfire Log Salvaging Could Bring Counties Funds and Environmental Challenges

There are 18 counties in Oregon that get a share of timber revenue off Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land known as O & C lands. Those lands are named after the Oregon and California Railroad, which was granted land by the federal government in the 1800s as an incentive to build railroad lines. The federal government later took the land back. According to Chris Cadwell, forester/analyst for the Association of O&C Counties and a former (BLM) forester, logging burned trees off BLM districts in the state that were hard hit by the wildfires could generate 420 million board feet of timber, which according to his estimates would translate into about $63 million in shared timber receipts for the counties. For Jackson County alone, that could generate nearly $10 million. However, the BLM, according to Cadwell, is currently proposing to salvage log about 100 million board feet of that 420 million board feet in 2021 and environmental challenges could derail those plans. Cadwell told Jackson County commissioners in a briefing this week that, “The 2021 timber sales plans are estimated to capture less than 25% of this potential volume from this harvest land base from what we can tell so far.” Cadwell noted that, “These dead trees have a shelf life of about a maximum of three years.”