Federal funding to help Oregon boost forest restoration work
Oregon Dept. of Forestry
Thousands of Oregon landowners are needing to reforest after the devastating 2020 wildfires.
SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) – The Oregon Department of Forestry said Thursday the state will be able to greatly increase treatments on overcrowded forestlands to improve forest health and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, thanks to new federal grants announced this spring.
ODF Family Forestland Coordinator Ryan Gordon says federal support for Oregon forests is coming in three forms.
$5 million in new funding from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Issued under the NRCS’ Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), these will assist individual landowners to treat privately owned, non-industrial forestland.
Reforestation efforts are already underway in some parts of Oregonâs forests that were affected by the Labor Day fires last year. While tens of thousands of trees have been replanted and even more seeds have been dispersed via aerial drops, it will still be a years-long undertaking to build back the Santiam State Forest and other areas that were devastated by the Beachie Creek Fire and the Lionshead Fire.
The first thing to understand about Oregonâs forests is that there is a real patchwork of ownership in some places, especially in the Santiam Canyon, where wildfires burned more than 16,000 acres of state forest land and 38,000 acres of federal Bureau of Land Management woods in both Linn and Marion counties. The nearby Willamette National Forest, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, saw more than 175,000 acres affected to varying degrees, though that number also includes the Holiday Farm Fire in Lane County.