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Then, last year, EPIC complained about the Forest Service’s practice of tractor logging. Kimberly Baker, the executive director of the Klamath Forest Alliance and a public land advocate for EPIC, said the tractor logging causes “serious soil damage and compaction” and that EPIC expressed its concerns to the Forest Service. “They have listened to our complaints — and that’s about all I can say. We haven’t necessarily seen a change in tactics but they are more aware of our concerns,” she said. On Friday morning, retired schoolteacher Sue Terence was inside her house with the air purifier on, a half mile from the Butler Fire that sparked overnight last Wednesday. “I can hardly think straight,”
8 North Coast Journal • Thursday, aug. 8, 2013 • northcoastjournal.com
she said. “The nearest ridge is the only one of three that we can see. Our oxygen level is going down quickly.” Local crews had held the fire to the neighboring watershed, Terence said, and Friday morning state and federal firefighters — fresh from fighting the Dance Fire — had taken over. As crews raced to contain the latest fire in the Salmon River complex, Terence said she worries that the Forest Service’s funding for the fuel reduction plan is tied to its profits from logging. Without strict oversight, she said, logging can actually create conditions that feed future fires. Logging — particularly helicopter salvage logging — has left large amounts of slash and vast fields of dense brush,
Terence said. Logging companies paid for roads and made their profits, she said, and “now we’re facing the costs of the catastrophe that follows.” Still, she added, she understands the Forest Service’s problems. It has the unenviable task of fixing 100 years of poor fire management, and its fuel reduction plan is still in its infancy. The Karuk Tribe and Klamath Watershed Council have been working with residents and communities to thin highrisk areas on private land, Terence said, but fuel reduction on public lands is only lurching forward. The Healthy Forests Restoration Act, signed in 2003, was designed to protect forest communities, but Terence said that in the case of Six