By Jeff Barnard

The Associated Press

GRANTS PASS – The old growth forests burned in last summer’s Biscuit Fire should be quickly logged and replanted to prevent future wildfires and speed regeneration of commercial timber and spotted owl habitat, a team of Oregon State University forestry professors said Thursday.

The report urged a much more aggressive approach than the U.S. Forest Service, advocating using herbicides to control brush and logging within roadless areas and old growth reserves. The Forest Service stayed away from those practices, which have been opposed by environmentalists through lawsuits.

”Left to nature, it is unlikely the most intensely burned lands will ever return to their former status, and even if they do it will take decades, perhaps even centuries longer than it would if we helped them along with appropriate reforestation efforts,” John Sessions, an Oregon State professor of forest engineering, said in a statement. The Biscuit Fire burned 500,000 acres last summer, primarily on the Siskiyou National Forest in southwestern Oregon, making it the biggest in the nation last year and the biggest in Oregon’s recorded history.

The report noted that the costs of restoring burned forests can be offset by selling burned timber, but only for the next few years, before the dead trees succumb to rot and insect infestation that diminish their value for lumber.

”What we want the public to understand is that the window of opportunity is closing, very quickly,” Sessions said. ”If management decisions are not made and acted upon very soon, nature will replace old forests with shrublands for a very long time into the future.”

The 2.5 billion board feet of timber proposed for salvage by the report is nearly 28 times the 90 million board feet proposed by the Forest Service, slated to begin next summer. The 137,000 acres of replanting is nearly five times more than the 28,000 acres the Forest Service has proposed.

The 57-page report was commissioned by the Board of Commissioners of Douglas County, once the most timber-dependent county in Oregon. The county suffered severe jobs losses when logging on Northwest national forests was sharply reduced over the past decade to protect habitat for salmon and the northern spotted owl.

Douglas County Commissioner Doug Robertson said they hoped the report, which cost the county $25,000, would lead to quicker recovery of salvage timber from the Apple and Tiller Complex fires within Douglas County and federal legislation to speed the wildfire salvage logging process so that economic value is not lost.

The report’s release came as Siskiyou National Forest officials were in Washington, D.C., briefing members of Congress and the Bush Administration on their proposals for salvage and forest regeneration on the Biscuit fire. The House is debating the 2004 Interior Appropriations Bill, which includes Forest Service funding.

The report, which was reviewed by Forest Service scientists, will be taken into account when the Forest Service issues a draft environmental impact statement on the Biscuit Fire salvage and recovery effort this August, said Tom Lavagnino, Forest Service spokesman for the Biscuit recovery team.

”Their three objectives were pretty well focused in the report: forest regeneration, future insect risk reduction, and timber salvage,” said Lavagnino. ”It focused on economic rather than environmental issues. That’s what they were asked to do and that’s what they have accomplished.”

The report earned praise from timber interests and criticism from environmentalists.

Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, said the Biscuit salvage plan being developed by the Forest Service would undoubtedly face legal challenge by environmentalists if it is as aggressive as the OSU report, but the report raises important issues.

”This is the first time anyone has looked at more quickly establishing forests for the long term and getting back what we want on those acres after a fire rather than simply arguing about burnt trees,” he said.

Rolf Skar of the Siskiyou Regional Education Project, an environmental group, said the report reflects an old-school emphasis on logging national forests to make money rather than recognizing the need to protect local communities from nearby wildfire threats. Based on Forest Service data, the report said the fire killed trees amounting to 4.2 billion board feet out of a total of 10 billion board feet within the fire area. Another 800 million board feet is likely to die from insect infestations due to fire stress. In the past year, economic losses from logging delays have reached tens of millions of dollars.

As much as 2.5 billion board feet lies within two miles of roads and could be salvaged outside of areas where logging is prohibited, such as the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, but within old growth forest reserves, streamside reserves, and other areas where logging is restricted, the report said.