SALEM, OR — As thousands of firefighters battle hundreds of thousands of acres of burned timber, brush, and grass, one state senator is thinking ahead to legislate for reforestation.
Senator Doug Whitsett said that state and federal officials should consider ways to encourage the restoration of protected areas.
The senator says that current laws actually discourage proper reforestation of damaged private property.
“If you don’t do anything and just leave the burn standing there, you’re not obligated to do anything. But if you cut the trees down and try to manage them in an appropriate fashion, then you’re obligated to reforestation.”
Whitsett says the problem is that the cost of replanting can often exceed the net value of the salvaged timber, leaving landowners at an extra loss.
Senator Whitsett is a former U.S. Forest Service wild land firefighter.
In 2012, he and other legislators partnered with the Oregon Department of Forestry to reinstate an “every acre counts” policy of directly and aggressively attacking wild fires.
He says those improved tactics were on display in the recent Two Bulls Fire west of Bend.
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