The amount of timber cut from Oregon’s forests and hauled to lumber mills dropped 9 percent between 2007 and 2008, as the housing market tanked and the price of timber dropped.

But in Deschutes County, the amount of timber harvested increased by 60 percent, led by a spike in harvest levels in national forests, according to numbers compiled by the Oregon Department of Forestry.

While forestry officials can’t fully explain the rise, they say the increase could help prevent catastrophic wildfires, keep jobs in the forest and contribute more money to the county.

But some in the timber industry would like to see more consistent levels of logging.

Statewide, the reduction from 3.8 billion board feet to 3.4 billion board feet correlates with the housing market, said Gary Lettman, principal forest economist with the Oregon Department of Forestry.

“This year, we’re pretty much tied to the recession level of 2001,” he said, and the state is heading toward harvest levels not seen since the Great Depression, he said.

A lot of the decline comes from the nonindustrial private forestlands, or family forests, he said, since private landowners often decide to cut fewer trees when timber prices are low. In 2008, lumber prices were less than half their mid-1990s levels.

The Deschutes National Forest has offered a fairly consistent amount of timber for sale over the past several years, said Ray Romero, natural resources staff officer with the Deschutes and Ochoco national forests.

But a couple of factors could have led to the increase in what loggers cut and remove from the forest, he said.

The Deschutes National Forest has focused timber sales on the Bend-Fort Rock District recently, he said. And that district is in Deschutes County, while portions of the Sisters Ranger District are in Jefferson County and parts of the Crescent Ranger District are in Klamath County. So while Deschutes County’s numbers are up in recent years, Jefferson County’s and Klamath County’s numbers are down, perhaps in part because of that shift in focus.

In addition, because of the tough economic conditions in 2008, loggers might have focused their cutting on projects close to the Gilchrist lumber mill, in order to minimize driving and fuel costs, he noted. That could have concentrated some of the work in Deschutes County as well, Romero said.

Asante Riverwind, with the local Sierra Club chapter, has another idea — a number of big timber projects were completed in 2007 and 2008, he said, and the Deschutes National Forest addressed some of the concerns of conservationists by agreeing to cut only smaller trees without old-growth characteristics.

“That kept projects out of the courts and didn’t tie them up,” he said.

While the timber sales weren’t perfect — the Sierra Club still opposes some of the projects in the Deschutes National Forest, Riverwind said — there was less contention and logging occurred on several projects.

Whatever the reason for the increase in logging in 2008, removing small trees reduces the risk of catastrophic fire in the area, said Joe Stutler, Deschutes County forester.

“It truly is protecting the forest because we have way too many trees on the landscape, and we simply have to take out some of the small-diameter trees,” Stutler said.

Cutting trees helps employ forestry crews as well, he said.

And the county also receives money from the timber harvested, which helps fund schools and roads. But because of depressed timber prices, the contribution is minimal, he said.

“Compared to what the county got in the mid-’80s, it’s a low number,” Stutler said.

Chuck Burley, a consultant with the American Forest Resource Council and former state representative, said a better marker of timber industry health is the amount of timber actually sold and available for sawmills.

No matter what loggers might cut one year, mill operators also need to count on a certain number of logs the next year.

“Whatever benefit the loggers and county see year to year, it’s short-lived,” he said.

While the Deschutes National Forest is offering a steady amount of timber for sale currently, Burley said the timber industry would like to see more.

Mills are concerned about harvest levels and the Forest Service offering enough sales to keep mills operating, said Rich Frazer, general manager of Oregon operations with Interfor Pacific, which runs the Gilchrist mill.

“The volumes that we’re currently getting we don’t feel are sufficient to operate the mill,” Frazer said.