THW Interview with Chief Brian Fennessey: II. USWFS and Bureaus- Where Does Project Planning Go?

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Whoops, this section should have gone with the previous post, quote from Fennessey (all quotes are from the transcript on the THW substack)

I remember when the district office would empty when there was a fire on the district or on the forest. I mean, everybody grabbed a tool, grabbed a yellow shirt, and went out there. And, you know, you didn’t know that the district ranger was a hell of a firefighter.
You know, the forest supervisor was a hell of a firefighter. Well, you know, over time, that’s changed. That’s not what it is today anymore. They’re still… You know, line officers that are amazing firefighters. I don’t want to take anything away from that. But the guys I used to work with, you know, the Joe Stutlers.
I think about Ray Quintanar. I mean, there’s all these names in my head that, man, were just incredible line officers and firefighters. Well, it’s not like that anymore. And it just is the way it is. And, you know, when it comes to public safety, And decisions need to be made as it affects communities, infrastructure, lives.
For me, again, this coming from a firefighter that’s been doing this for 48 years, 25% of those years as a fire chief, that needs to land on the fire service. We need to be responsible. We need to be held accountable for lives, property, and infrastructure.
And I don’t think it’s fair to the line officers that have to take that responsibility because they’re filling that position. I think it is time for a change. And I do see where one agency just makes a lot of sense. Will it be smooth? Will it be easy? No. Are we laying the framework now?
And have we shown that, hey, look, this can be done? Absolutely. Tim, how many people did you hear say, well, if the Department of Interior does this, who’s going to be spending the time on the landscape? You cannot detach these firefighters from the landscape. Nobody has. Nobody has. And should the Forest Service firefighters, should Congress decide to move them over and there be one agency, it’s the same thing. People’s offices aren’t going anywhere. Those same firefighters are going to be doing the work on the landscape. And I think it’s scale. I think when the budget for the firefighters… It’s moved over. And if you look at the FY27 budget today, that’s where it is, is we’re going to do a lot more work at scale on the landscape. And man, it’s got to be, I keep saying at scale, 24-7. We’ve got a long road ahead of us. But that’s what it’s going to take. Can we do that with two separate agencies? I suppose we could.
I’m suspicioning that someone has asked and answered the set of question we might have.  Who is going to do project planning for fuels and prescribed fire- the same bureau people who do it now? How will that work, if charge as worked, then USFWS will have to pay them for that work for fuels projects.  Even more potentially confusing, though, is what about mixed purpose projects?  Let’s take a thin and underburn.. would have fuel goals but also forest health goals and maybe timber. How to proportion the funding?  If some folks wanted to negotiate out important units or change prescription to suit some publics, would the fuels folks be able to say “hey if you don’t do x, we’re not funding it?” Maybe those aren’t questions on the Interior side, but seem relevant to the “should the FS fire folks move?” discussion.
Remember Don Yasuda’s presentation from 2009? Almost 20 years ago..it’s worth looking back…
It’s too hard to get projects through.. too many competing priorities. Again, not sure that these are relevant to Interior, except I have seen BLM fuels projects hung up in litigation.
But.. what if.. the USWFS had its own project planning shop?  My former boss, Fred Norbury, used to say that he thought the FS NEPA planning should operate more like a NIKE factory but then operated as a set of cobbler shops.  We can imagine all kinds of AI helped documents; when a court case came down, all ongoing documents could immediately be tagged for updating..  Perhaps even  (wildfire is a national security issue!) a separate set of DOJ litigators focused on fuels projects, with continuous feedback to the NEPA factory.  Maybe all housed in the same building.  Of course, local folks would review and do the fieldwork, but at the end of the day the analysis is a document.  For example, a case where a judge determines that an air quality model is controversial, everyone working could automatically switch.  Lawyers (and apparently, judges) already use AI.. so…according to Reuters..
An Oklahoma judge has acknowledged that a ruling he issued contained fictitious citations generated by artificial intelligence, according to state records, adding to a growing number of cases in which judges ​have faced scrutiny over AI use.
The judge, Lawrence Wheeler of the District Court of Stephens ‌County, told an investigator with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that he used OpenAI’s ChatGPT for research, and that an order he drafted contained two citations to cases that do not exist, according to an August 17 letter from a prosecutor to ​the state attorney general’s office.
It’s a new world out there, and maybe fire folks, just like they have the best tech, could have the best litigation and project planning shop.
One story, as many of you know, I came to planning from silviculture.  When someone in silviculture found something out, we wrote it down and shared the document.  We also had forest, area, and regional training.   We had certification through CEFES and SI.
When I started to work with litigation, the advice was never written down because “the other side might get hold of it and learn our strategy.”  This was no doubt true as some folks on our side seemed to think that sharing with the other side was a good thing to do, because the other side was right and we were wrong.  When I was in DC, my boss asked me (and JR) to write a paper for the NEPA folks on “when NEPA applies.” No OGC attorney wanted to write things down because they felt each case is special (which it is). Finally one of the OGC folks helped us out and we published the document.  Why am I telling these stories?  Because the continuous learning process from NEPA through appeals/objections (that part worked OK) to litigation  did not work as effectively as it might have.  I hope it is greatly different nowadays. But it would be interesting for the USWFS and its contractor base to take a run at the process and see what they could do. When we worked with e-NEPA as part of E-gov (PALS was part of that effort) our contractor talked about the culture of how the FS does NEPA, but that was too heavy of a lift for us.  Perhaps it’s worth the USWFS doing a pilot experiment.  What if folks used all the tools currently at their disposal? What if litigators, Solicitors, and project planners directly communicated differently and frequently? Even a review of how things are working in the project planning to litigation assembly line.. by some outside folks, might be helpful.
In Fennessey’s terminology, “Does accomplishing the mission require changes to how we do business?”

THW Interview with Chief Brian Fennessey: I. Line Officers and Budgets

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I recommend listening to The Hotshot Wakeup’s interview with USWFS Chief Brian Fennessey last Friday.  There’s nothing like hearing directly from the horse’s mouth. As we thanked the fire workforce a few weeks agao, he also attributes the success of this fire season to the workforce.. despite the challenges of a low snowpack and organizational changes, they pulled it off.

Take the mission and carry it out as best they can. And we feel like they did that. And in some cases, like I say, it was just unbelievable. The feedback I’ve gotten from type I CIMTs on how great it was to be sitting at the agency administrative briefing and looking another firefighter in the eye.
That doesn’t mean the line officer wasn’t there sharing resource values at risk and those sorts of things, but how well that went. Now, there’s occasions where we may have new FMOs, unit chiefs, where maybe that didn’t go as smoothly as it needed to. Not a surprise.
But the fact that there was so much fire on Department of Interior dirt this year, where we got to really exercise what this new organization was going to be like, and the fact that All of the horror stories that we heard in the winter and spring, what was going to happen and woe is me, none of that happened, I think speaks to the firefighters that are out there doing the job. We asked a lot of them, Tim. I mean, we asked them not only to continue to be FMOs and fire managers, but we asked them to be fire administrators too. And we didn’t give them much support.
There wasn’t much to give at the time other than get through the season and You know, as best we could. And so we’re feeling pretty good about that, but at the same time understanding that we got a lot of work ahead of us as well.

Previously, THW had covered about some internal tension going on in the Forest Service wildfire space, with some folks supportive of the new organization, and other folks highly worried about the FS wildfire folks going over.

There were four  areas specifically that Fennessey touched on that I want to engage with.1,  Line officers’ authorities and budgets  2 What stays and what goes with USWFS in terms of project planning and litigation. 3.Why agencies can have a culture of “no”, and what happened to Service First? and 4. Communication problems and the broader issue of why problems don’t get fixed. As always, you are invited to listen and bring up your own topics from the interview.

I thought that this was interesting

But yeah, nine months, nine and a half months in, and it’s been one heck of a ride. Yeah. I’m just learning a ton, enjoying the heck out of it, being around firefighters and the energy and enthusiasm that so many of them have. We have a weekly staff meeting, not just my executive team,
but all the geographic area fire chiefs and the exec team. There’s probably 40, 50 people on this call every Thursday that goes for a couple hours and These are the leaders of the organization and getting honest feedback on what’s working and maybe what’s not.
I think the last show we talked about the cultural coalition that we have going, which is an internal group being facilitated by Mission Center Solutions and others that is bringing feedback from the field, from those that are living it every day and putting it right in front of us.

I don’t know if other parts of Interior and the FS have a similar process.  For sure, in my experience, folks will tell things to third parties they won’t tell their bosses.

I’ll start with what he said about line officers being equals and not superiors.

Take the mission and carry it out as best they can. And we feel like they did that. And in some cases, like I say, it was just unbelievable. The feedback I’ve gotten from type I CIMTs on how great it was to be sitting at the agency administrative briefing and looking another firefighter in the eye.
That doesn’t mean the line officer wasn’t there sharing resource values at risk and those sorts of things, but how well that went. Now, there’s occasions where we may have new FMOs, unit chiefs, where maybe that didn’t go as smoothly as it needed to. Not a surprise.
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But back to your original question, I would say give it a chance. I think those, many of the doubters on the DOI side would tell you today that, you know, they got it wrong. Actually, it makes sense and it’s working. I would tell the line officers to talk to the DOI line officers. Yeah, was it perfect?
Probably not. But hey, we’re all in this together. We cannot do this without the line officers. They cannot do it without us. It’s all about partnerships and relationships. And the nonsense that goes on in between is just that. It’s nonsense.
Budget- Are Other Folks Dipping Into the Fire Budget?
I  heard that for years too, even like I said, when I worked in the 70s and 80s. And I kind of, again, I don’t, Know this, but from my perspective, it’s like, listen, if you’re any federal agency and you feel like you’ve been underfunded for years, I mean, you figure out a way to work around that, right?
And I think over the decades, you know, that’s occurred. I mean, I attended the Hotshot, a portion of the Hotshot superintendent steering committee, I believe it was in Boise, you know, my first, second, third month, whatever, up there and I remember one of the superintendents describing how they believe that the budget process went, and I think there’s 60, 70, Forest Service hotshot crews, and that the piece of pie was cut evenly, so they each got their equal piece of the pie, but when it finally got down to them, many times there was no pie, or there was very little pie left, and this and that, and you ask, well, what happens?
And I think… Nobody’s necessarily doing anything quote unquote wrong. They’re just doing what’s been done for many years. You know, they’re funding, potentially positions are being funded, projects are being funded out of fire that maybe weren’t intended for that. On the DOI side, we’ve been really clear about it. It’s like, look, because it’s all coming through us, even the prescribed fire monies or fuel treatment funding, you know, we will make sure that, you know, firefighters are doing, you know, fire Related work and not non-fire work. I mean, the public is expecting us to, you know, to spend it that way. Again, to the degree that, again.
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So, other than when I worked in reforestation and genetics on forests, I was always an “off the top” funded person in the RO and WO.  In the RO, my budget came from the programs who did most projects and had most appeals and litigation through some kind of formula.  In the WO probably the same for the NEPA staff. What Fennessey seems to be talking about is “charge as worked” for primary fire folks, thinking that they have enough work on their own (perhaps) that they don’t need to do others’ work (whether funded by them or not?) not clear.  So it’s almost like there are two areas of concern… how wildfire funding gets to the ground and who else should rightfully get a chunk, and the charge as worked question. Since I don’t understand how Interior does or doesn’t do charge as worked, that part is confusing to me.
Next post.. where do USWFS and the bureaus meet in terms of project planning, NEPA and litigation?

Permitting Bill NEPA Provisions.. Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act: Hochman Review

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What’s in permitting reform bill.. he read it so (maybe) we don’t have to.  Tom Hochman of the Foundation for American Innovation is one of my favorite young people working on permitting (I call them the “permitting bros”- young and enthusiastic (not old and jaded). Here’s what he says about the NEPA provisions (remember the bros come at this from mostly an energy focus, all our forest veg management drama is little more than footnote in their magnum opus.

Briefings, walk-throughs, and the good old DC rumor mill have started to surface details over the last few weeks, but finally, today, the whole text is out. The bill, dubbed the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, is a whopper – at more than 400 pages, it makes the 170-page Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (EPRA) look piddling in comparison. It represents a tremendous effort by members and staff on the Hill and in the White House, with particular credit to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) and Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee

You may hear that this bill is really bad from certain quarters.  According to the Western Environmental Law Center  it “threatens to eviscerate environmental, wildlife, water, climate laws.”

Hochman has sections on other topics, but here is the NEPA and associated litigation section of his review.

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National Environmental Policy Act

As long-suffering permitting reform wonks know, NEPA was always going to be central to negotiations. It is the “Magna Carta of federal environmental laws” and the most heavily litigated permitting statute, and it has played a starring role in the slow-walking and cancellation of energy projects for more than half a century. (For some data points on the NEPA burden, check out NEPAstats.)

NEPA is burdensome for three main reasons. First, breadth: NEPA review is triggered by any “major federal action”, which has been interpreted to mean just about any federal action, from picnics to federal hiring. Second, the scope of review: NEPA has traditionally required analysis not just of the direct and proximate effects of an action, but also of effects that are “later in time or farther removed in distance” and “cumulative” in nature, creating exceptionally open-ended requirements for agencies. The Supreme Court’s Seven County decision has narrowed this considerably, but the ruling still leaves plenty of room for litigants to test its limits. Third, litigation: NEPA’s breadth and scope make it exceptionally easy to find a hook for a lawsuit. The consequence of NEPA litigation, even when unsuccessful, is immense. Plaintiffs can seek a preliminary injunction that halts a project while the case plays out, causing projects to stall for years or be abandoned altogether. And when agencies do lose in court, the remedy can be remand with vacatur, meaning that the agency’s approval is thrown out and the project is blocked until the agency redoes its analysis – often a years-long process.

On breadth, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (henceforth BAAJA) narrows the definition of major federal action (MFA) such that fewer projects trigger NEPA in the first place. Specifically:

  • “Lifeline infrastructure”, including telecommunications infrastructure, transmission lines, pipelines, and beyond, is not an MFA for various repair and replacement activities.
  • Receipt of federal loans or grants (think the “federal financial assistance” trigger) generally does not, by itself, make an activity an MFA, subject to limited exceptions.
  • Many transmission and pipeline activities within existing rights-of-way are no longer MFAs.
  • Certain USACE environmental projects with a federal cost share of up to $50 million are not MFAs.

On scope, BAAJA bolsters the Seven County decision, reaffirming NEPA’s procedural nature and requiring that courts reviewing NEPA claims must afford substantial deference to agency decisionmaking.

And now for the big stuff: litigation.

First, BAAJA changes the statute of limitations for NEPA lawsuits from six years to 150 days. This is pretty standard fare, and will not meaningfully limit plaintiffs’ ability to participate in lawsuits, but will bring more certainty to project sponsors.

Second, in order to bring a lawsuit, plaintiffs must allege “direct harm” and, where there was a public comment period, must have submitted a comment specific enough to put the agency on notice of the issue they’re suing over. In other words, they must give the agency an opportunity to address any alleged defects before reaching the courts.

Third and most importantly, injunctions and vacatur are eliminated outright for NEPA-specific claims. These remedies are, of course, preserved when the violation involves an underlying statute such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, including when those violations are challenged through the APA. The logic for Republicans and Democrats alike is that purely procedural statutes such as NEPA do not create substantive environmental protections, and thus ought not result in project-stopping litigation.

This represents a sea change in the NEPA status quo, and is a truly exciting development. Without the threat of a project-killing injunction or vacatur, NEPA lawsuits lose most of their value as a delay tactic – and agencies will likely limit the “litigation-proofing” of NEPA documents that has driven much of the ballooning page lengths and review timelines over the years.

In return, two new requirements have been added to NEPA. First, BAAJA requires project sponsors to submit with their applications a stakeholder engagement report of no more than 20 pages for EAs and EISs. Second, it codifies existing practice by requiring a comment period of 45 to 60 days following the publication of a Notice of Intent for an EIS. I’m generally not concerned about these changes, though I would note that for certain processes that often receive timely EAs, such as applications for permits to drill (APDs) that don’t qualify for the categorical exclusions discussed below, the new stakeholder engagement report may slow the average permitting timeline. Nevertheless, this is a very minor nit compared to the enormous improvements reflected in this title.

“Privatization” Back in the News: Organizations Crying Wolf (Again) or What Else is Out There?

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What’s up with the resurgence of Privatization Concern?

I’ve gotten on FB for birthdays and received a few ads, I’m a bit wary of clicking because who knows what I might be automatically signing…

 

 

Also

Does anyone know if there is some specific proposal out there? Like I said, I don’t want to clicks, because who knows..?

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I did see this High Country News and the Maroon Bells thing…

Posted inPublic lands

The Forest Service is poised to hand off one of the West’s most visited landscapes

Critics say this is a test case for privatizing public lands.
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Since I live near Pike’s Peak which has been managed by a city since 1948, and no one seems to complain about it.  With all due respect to Mr. Weiss,  I think it’s a fear-mongering stretch and a half to say that this is a “test case for privatization”.

Here’s the history.

In response, Pitkin County will take over management in 2027. Critics see this as a harbinger of further privatization; the Forest Service did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is the camel’s nose under the tent. The Trump administration wants to sell off lands wherever it can and privatize lands wherever it can’t. So this is the test case for privatization,” said Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities.

Roaring Fork Valley residents and organizations appear to support the county even as they criticize the conditions that forced the transfer. “The county is responding to unfortunate circumstances on behalf of our community,” said Will Roush, executive director of Wilderness Workshop, an environmental watchdog group based in the Roaring Fork.  “The real tragedy is this administration’s failure to adequately invest in and staff our federal land-management agencies and the places that are so fundamental to our state’s identity.”

And yet, the budget is not set by the Administration, and we all know that the White River (and pretty much all forests) are underfunded.  When Scott Fitzwilliams came to the White River from Region 5 in 2009. he said he was shocked by how much lower the recreation budget was than in California.

And HCN does the usual stuff..

The agency lost almost 6,000 employees in 2025, and President Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 would slash its budget still further, cutting it by 75%. The White River National Forest has lost a third of its year-round staff since 2024, going from 169 to 111 employees, according to an analysis by Aspen Journalism.

Doesn’t mention the prior gain of 6K employees, the budget deficit  (pre-Trump Admin),  or the fact that we have no reason to believe that this Trump budget will go any farther with the Appropriators than the last one.

I have two hypotheses for why the sudden privatization flurry…1) after all the dire warnings, the fire season is over, so there’s a need for new fear fodder, or 2) it’s all about getting people riled up for the mid-terms. Other hypotheses?

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The last time we discussed this is here. in May (pre-fire season). In that one  where I asked Grok for other examples besides Pike’s Peak…
  • City and County of Denver / Winter Park Recreational Association, Colorado — Holds a long-term ski area term special use permit for Winter Park Resort on Arapaho National Forest lands.
  • Various counties and municipalities partner for trail systems, shuttle operations (e.g., Hanging Lake in Colorado), or local recreation management through cooperative agreements that may include SUPs.

Other forests (e.g., Ozark-St. Francis in Arkansas) list “Access Special Use Permit Applications” and “State Parks Special Use Permit Applications,” indicating counties or local entities apply for road access or facility management.

In a sense, aren’t ski area permits a form of  “privatization of public lands”? Just asking…because the SUP is not to a county but to a private corporation?

For those curious, here is the history on Pike’s Peak according to Google AI

The City of Colorado Springs has held the federal special use permit to operate and maintain the Pikes Peak Highway since June 7, 1948. [1] The agreement was struck with the U.S. Forest Service after a previous private 20-year license held by industrialist Spencer Penrose expired. When the road initially reverted back to the federal government, it fell into severe disrepair due to a lack of maintenance funds. To solve this, the Forest Service issued the special use permit to Colorado Springs, allowing the city to take over maintenance and implement a toll system to fund its upkeep. [1, 2]
And
The concessions on Pikes Peak are officially outsourced by the City of Colorado Springs to the hospitality corporation Aramark. While the city manages the physical road and infrastructure, the concessionaire is responsible for day-to-day guest hospitality services on the mountain.
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The concessionaire partners directly with the city to manage visitor impact on the alpine tundra. They lead training programs for staff and maintain waste management and sustainable day-to-day practices, helping the peak maintain its high-level “Gold Standard Hospitality” environmental designation from Leave No Trace.
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Federal Lands Litigation – update through September 27, 2026

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FOREST SERVICE

Court decision in Klamath Forest Alliance v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (E.D. California)

On August 19, the district court invalidated the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Biological Opinion for the South Fork Sacramento Public Safety and Forest Restoration Project, on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, including two recovery units for northern spotted owls.  The court found that the agency’s determination that certain affected territories do not represent the only source population to the recovery units is not supported by evidence in the record.  The Forest’s reliance on the BiOp was therefore also illegal.  The article includes a link to the court’s opinion.

On September 15, the district court vacated the BiOp because the lack of analysis is a substantive error that might affect reconsideration of the decision.

Court order in Monroe County Board of Commissioners v. U. S. Forest Service (S.D. Indiana)

On September 8, the district court vacated most of the Houston South Vegetation Management and Restoration Project on the Hoosier National Forest, discussed here.  The court determined that, “The seriousness of the Forest Service’s error and its repeated failure to resolve that error favor the ordinary remedy of vacatur.”   The court found that the Forest’s use of a supplemental information report instead of reinitiating NEPA was “perfunctory,” and that “despite having had two attempts to do so, has not offered any information that would bear on this Project’s impact on Lake Monroe (emphasis by the court). The article includes the court order.

BLM

TRO denied in Wild Horse Education v. U. S. Department of the Interior (D. Idaho)

On September 5, the district court refused to grant a temporary restraining order to stop a helicopter drive-trap operation to gather 281 wild horses from the Challis Herd Management Area, but it set a schedule for briefing a motion for a preliminary injunction that would occur after the gather is scheduled to occur.  The court found no irreparable harm because other members of the herd would remain, and no horses would be adopted or sold for at least 45 days.

TRO granted

The district court has granted Oregon Wild Horse Organization, Central Oregon Wild Horse Coalition, and Western Watersheds Project a temporary restraining order against the BLM’s Riddle Herd Management Area “emergency gather.”  Officials argued the emergency round-up was necessary to provide food, water, and veterinary care as the herd faced severe shortages and long distances between water following a fire that burned 70% of the area.  Plaintiffs say the BLM lacks proper monitoring data showing horses are causing environmental harm and claim the agency is using wildfire as a pretext for aggressive reductions while ignoring commercial livestock impacts.

New lawsuit:  Wilderness Workshop v. Burgum (D. Colorado)

On September 8, Wilderness Workshop and the Wilderness Society sued the BLM over oil and gas lease sales, which covered 430 square miles in Colorado and Wyoming.  The complaint alleges, “BLM’s EA for the Colorado lease sale did not analyze the impacts of leasing on big game habitat or migration corridors.”  According to plaintiffs,  “The problem is that the plans were all created under the assumption that at the leasing stage or later, BLM could add new protective stipulations as needed.” And then BLM issued and an Instructional Memorandum interpreting the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s requirements to only allow lease stipulations to protect wildlife if they are included in the agency’s resource management plan.  Plaintiffs argue that this interpretation conflicts with FLPMA regulations’ requirement for “preference criteria” that would protect sensitive areas.  They also allege that lands with wilderness characteristics weren’t properly considered.  They allege violations of FLPMA, NEPA, OBBBA and the APA.  The article includes a link to the complaint.

Court decision in Oregon Natural Desert Association v. Groffy (D. Oregon)

On September 8, the district court followed up its preliminary injunction by holding that a 2025 land use plan amendment that reduced the area to be protected from livestock grazing by being managed as “key research natural areas” for sage-grouse violated FLPMA and NEPA.  The judge found that BLM had failed to adequately address the impacts of grazing on the wilderness characteristics of the wilderness study areas within these RNAs, as required by FLPMA.  The BLM also violated NEPA by failing to address changes in definitions of key terms used in the 2025 amendment and other “unexplained inconsistency.”  The court did not vacate the plan, but ordered the BLM to maintain the status quo.  It also upheld the redesignation of areas as open to grazing as being consistent with the purpose of the RNAs.  The article includes a link to the opinion.

Court decision in Cascadia Wildlands v. Alcock (9th Cir.)

On September 18, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court decision that had favored plaintiffs.  The BLM decision at issue was the adoption of a forest management plan for timber harvesting within a 13,225-acre area, and the EA’s compliance with NEPA.  The court found the effects analysis to be adequate for soil disturbances, invasive weeds, sensitive species, and cumulative impacts.  The court also found that the EA did not need to be as site-specific as plaintiffs sought because, “NEPA does not require agencies to do a “parcel by parcel examination of potential environmental effects” when “the parcels likely to be affected are not yet known.”  The court made it clear how this decision differed from condition-based management (and there is an implication that the site-specific effects analysis sought by plaintiffs must be provided when the parcels are known):

“Finally, Plaintiffs suggest that the BLM’s adoption of the Siuslaw Plan does not comply with NEPA because the agency’s future selection of parcels for timber harvesting will not be subject to any NEPA review. That is incorrect. As the record makes clear, before approving any specific timber harvesting projects, “the BLM will complete a tiered environmental assessment, categorical exclusion review, or Determination of NEPA Adequacy (DNA), as appropriate.””

The article includes a link to the opinion (which is clearer than the article).

ENDANGERED SPECIES

On July 14, the Trump Administration published a final rule limiting the definition of “take” of a listed species to an affirmative act that is intentionally and purposefully directed at a particular animal, and it no longer includes a definition of “harm” in this context, which formerly explicitly included effects on its habitat.  The new rule became effective on September 14.  There are now at least eight legal challenges to the regulation pending; seven are listed in this article.  Below are links to complaints for some of them.

Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (W.D. Wash.)

Defenders of Wildlife v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (N.D. Cal.) 

State of California v. Burgum (N.D. Cal.) 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (N.D. Cal.) (not listed in the article)

Preliminary injunction granted in Save the Bull Trout v. U. S. Dept. of the Interior (D. Montana)

On September 4, the district court enjoined Department of the Interior and West Side Ditch Company from diverting water from the Upper Clark Fork River when the streamflow falls below 90 cfs to ensure the functional integrity of bull trout critical habitat.  The National Park Service operates the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site and diverts water from the West Side Ditch for its purposes.  Plaintiffs allege that defendants unlawfully take threatened bull trout “via entrainment and inducement of suboptimal instream flow on the section of the UCF River downstream of the WSD,” and have not complied with an incidental take statement addressing these concerns.  While the Park Service has taken some steps to address its direct effects, the court held, “NPS has failed, however, to meaningfully engage West Side on the installation of a fish screen beyond exercising its voting rights as a shareholder.”

(This case may illustrate how the changes to incidental take requirements discussed above could affect future actions.  Here, there is both direct and indirect killing of a listed species, but it is arguably not intentional, and potentially not covered by ESA.)

New lawsuit:  WildEarth Guardians v. Burgum (D. New Mexico)

On September 8, Plaintiffs challenged the failure of the Fish and Wildlife Service to finalize its proposed listing of the Pecos pupfish as a threatened species, and designation of its critical habitat.  The fish is found only in the Pecos River Basin in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas.  Four of the nine analysis units for the species include BLM lands.  It is threatened by activities that affect surface and groundwater; plaintiffs specifically identify fracking.  The one-year deadline passed in November, 2025.  The press release includes a link to the complaint, and to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed listing rule.

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (D. Oregon)

On September 9, CBD, Friends of the Columbia Gorge and Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to complete the listing process for the northwestern and southwestern pond turtles, which had led to proposed listings in October of 2023.  ESA requires a final decision within one year.  The pond turtles are found on the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California.  They are threatened by predation from non-native species and habitat loss, allegedly including part of a lake that was drained on national forest land. The article includes a link to the complaint.

(In a rare instance of the government discussing pending litigation, the article quotes an “Interior Department spokesperson,” apparently in relation to the one-year listing deadline: “This lawsuit seeks to preserve a decades-old regulatory overreach that expanded the Endangered Species Act beyond the authority granted by Congress.”)

New lawsuit:  WildEarth Guardians v. Burgum (D. D.C.)

On September 15, WildEarth Guardians sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to meet an August 2025 deadline for a final listing decision for this butterfly.  It is endemic to tallgrass prairie habitat, including Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie and Dakota Prairie National Grasslands (Forest Service), Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve (Park Service) and some BLM lands.  It was proposed for listing as a threatened species; the threats include habitat loss, herbicide use and poorly managed fire.  The press release includes a link to the complaint.

Court decision in Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (E.D. California)

Court decision in Defenders of Wildlife v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (E.D. California)

On September 16, the district court held that the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it determined, in conjunction with its decision to list the Sierra Nevada red fox as endangered in 2021, that designation of a critical habitat for this population was “not prudent” (a term used in the statute).  The FWS erred by “failing to weigh the benefits of designating critical habitat, failing to consider the potential effect on the recovery of the species, and in applying an incorrect ‘significant threat’ standard.” A small, isolated population of 18 to 39 foxes is found in high-elevation environments in California and southern Oregon. The article includes a link to both court orders to redo the process; the interim remedy has not yet been determined.

Court decision in Texas v. U. S. Department of the Interior (5th Cir.)

On September 11, in a case discussed in the last Smokey Wire, where the Fish and Wildlife Service abandoned its defense of listing the lesser prairie chicken as an endangered species in order to settle the case, the 5th Circuit (not the 10th Circuit, incorrectly identified there) reversed the district court’s decision to deny intervention to the Center for Biological Diversity and Texas Campaign for the Environment.  However, the appellate court found that individual plaintiff members had not established standing to appeal the voluntary remand of the listing decision to the FWS.

(This clarifies the intervention question, but muddles the standing question, e.g.: “The members’ profession of an `intent’ to return to the places they had visited before—where they will presumably, this time, be deprived of the opportunity to observe animals of the endangered species—is simply not enough” for appellate standing.”)

  • Mifepristone (in case you think only the usual suspects do this)

Notice of Intent to Sue

On September 24, Students for Life of America formally warned the Food and Drug Administration on Sept. 24 that it will sue under the Endangered Species Act unless the agency acts on the abortion pill mifepristone within 60 days. The anti-abortion group argues that the FDA broke federal wildlife law when it approved the drug in 2000 without consulting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service, Fox News reported.  The notice asks the FDA to take specific actions, including environmental testing and pulling the drug from the market…  The group claims more than 50 tons of abortion-related medical waste reach water systems each year…  The science offered so far is thin.  (Taken verbatim from this article.)

OTHER

New lawsuit:  American Federation of Government Employees v. U. S. Department of Agriculture (N.D. California)

On September 8, four unions representing USDA employees, the County of Santa Clara, California; the City and County of San Francisco, California; Prince George’s County, Maryland; the Alliance of Crop, Soil and Environmental Science Societies; the American Geophysical Union; the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks; Natural Resources Defense Council; and Western Watersheds Project sued to stop the Trump administration from implementing a reorganization of the Department.  In their motion for a preliminary injunction (linked to this press release), they ask the court to halt “imminent forced relocations of employees that are part of a reorganization.”  A statement from Western Watersheds Project:

“The Trump administration’s meddling in the structure and function of the U.S. Forest Service, and closure of Regional Offices and research facilities, will impair the management of our National Forests and National Grasslands, and undermine the legal safeguards that protect public lands and wildlife.  This effort to eliminate land management professionals and reshuffle entire agencies without congressional authorization presents a clear violation of the separation of powers that is at the heart of American democracy.”

On September 16, the court granted the injunction, except for relocations of employees in the National Capital Region to another duty station within the commuting area.

Voluntary dismissal in Montana v. Haaland (D. Montana)

On September 14, the parties in this case filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against the National Park Service’s 2024 Bison Management Plan for Yellowstone National Park.  In April 2026, the NPS had announced its intent to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement.  A second lawsuit from the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Council on Fish and Wildlife remains pending.

 

 

Forest Service Packers and Mules on the Dome Fire- Video

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This is a great video about  FS employees from the Shasta-T and the Stanislaus  and the FS mules working on the Dome (Park Service) Fire.  I don’t see why they couldn’t have included the  FS shield along with the Park Service and the USWFS… but whatever..

Here’s a link to the video, and below is the write-up.

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Mules on the Dome Fire
Several pack mules from the Shasta-Trinity National Fores, as well as from the Stanislaus National Forest t are being used to support firefighters on the Dome Fire. These intelligent, strong animals provide invaluable support. Using pack mules allows helicopters to do other work, such as bucket drops; and mules can also be used in smoky conditions where a helicopter would not have good visibility to deliver supplies to a remote site.A typical mule team, called a ‘string’, consists of five mules and a lead horse. Mules look similar to horses – they are the offspring of a female horse (mare) and male donkey (jack) – but have longer ears, a shorter and stronger back, more durable feet, better peripheral vision, and require less food and water. They are a cautious animal, and each can carry 160 – 200 lbs. of gear. During an incident, such as the Dome Fire, the mule’s load is varied and can include items such as fire hose, pumps, nozzles, fuel tanks, and supplies for firefighters who are camped out. They will pack in needed supplies including water, MREs (meals ready to eat), drip-torches and other firefighting equipment to firefighters preparing the heritage site to withstand a potential threat of fire. Trails are treacherous and these sure-footed mules on a typical day journey 20 to 30 miles. In one load, a long string of mules can carry an amount that would require several helicopter flights. Since mules can travel almost anywhere, they can carry supplies directly to the firefighters, saving time and energy for fighting the fire. The Dome Fire is in a wilderness area and the use of mules for transportation is compatible with wilderness values. Historically, mules were the traditional way to move supplies and equipment throughout the mountains of California. In the 1930’s there were over 1,000 mules used by the U. S. Forest Service. However, as road systems improved, the use of mule strings declined substantially. Currently, there are approximately 100 mules used by the Forest Service across the country.

 

The Toll Mounts: More Trees Enrolled in Carbon Offset Programs Burn Up: Shawn Regan

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This is one of those TSW features we all like called “we told you this would happen, but you didn’t listen.”  Even without our joint knowledge, sheer logic would have said that the two ideas “based on climate change everything will burn up” AND “if we pay people to leave things alone in western dry forests, they won’t burn up” don’t fit together. I’ve always found that when combos of ideas are illogical, someone is probably making a buck, and that person may well have the ear of political interests.

It makes sense that if you start a policy intervention, you would ask experts (us, for example) and when something doesn’t seem to be working the way you intended, change the way you are implementing it, or decide the intervention wasn’t a good idea.

We’ve covered the individual cases here before, but Shawn Regan went ahead and ran some numbers.

California is home to some of the nation’s strictest climate mandates. Its cap-and-trade program mandates that large emitters obtain allowances for each ton of carbon they emit. They can meet part of that obligation with carbon offsets, including credits generated by forests that purportedly store carbon over long periods.

Over the program’s history, California companies have spent billions of dollars on these carbon offsets, the vast majority generated by forest projects. The state’s logic is that a company can continue emitting carbon so long as it pays someone elsewhere to keep enough carbon stored in trees for up to a century. That assumes the forests don’t burn up in the meantime—and this summer, many did.

At the Opal Mountain site in central Oregon, more than 85 percent of the 14,000-acre forest-carbon project burned in a wildfire this summer. The project has generated over 500,000 carbon credits, purchased by companies including Southern California Gas, Shell, and Pacific Gas and Electric. Elsewhere, in Washington State, fires this summer burned tens of thousands of acres at the Colville forest-carbon site, an enormous project whose credits have been bought by Chevron and other major firms.

Here’s a thought. Maybe PG&E would be better off spending the money, oh, I don’t know…doing fuel treatments around their powerlines? Or maybe updating or checking on them?

Altogether, nearly 80,000 acres of land set aside for California carbon banking have burned in wildfires this year, according to data compiled by the climate-focused nonprofit CarbonPlan.

Some of these projects commanded high prices despite significant fire risks. The Opal Mountain project has been marketed as a “premier carbon forestry investment,” with millions of dollars of value tied to its carbon credits. In 2024, California regulators gave the project a “Direct Environmental Benefits in the State” designation, making its credits especially valuable under state rules. California regulations require that at least half the offsets used by a regulated company come from projects deemed to provide direct environmental benefits within the state.

Why would protecting trees in Oregon provide a direct environmental benefit to California? The owners of the Opal Mountain site claimed their fire-management activities would reduce the risk of wildfire smoke drifting into California. The approval for its special designation claims that its “forest management plan will reduce the risk of wildfire.” Many of those measures were still being planned or considered, yet California regulators nonetheless approved the designation. Now, less than two years later, a wildfire has burned most of the project—including a fire lookout cited as evidence of its wildfire protection.

Now, we all know what direction prevailing winds go from Oregon.  If you don’t know, you might think about the St. Helens ash plume if you were around then. Even trusty Google AI says:

Prevailing Winds: Oregon experiences prevailing westerly and southwesterly winds coming off the Pacific Ocean, especially during storms and certain seasonal patterns.

Downwind Regions: Air masses moving east-northeast from Oregon typically carry weather systems, smoke, or particulate matter toward Idaho, Washington, Montana, and parts of Wyoming and Canada.

Hmm.. I don’t know about you, but I would volunteer to work on a proposal review team for CARB.  It would be funny if it didn’t involve bilking someone (California taxpayers?)

California has tried to account for wildfire risks by establishing a “buffer pool,” to which each project is required to contribute as a kind of insurance policy. When a fire destroys a forest-carbon project, credits from the pool are canceled to cover the loss. But this approach has proven inadequate. A 2022 study found that fires had already consumed at least 95 percent of the credits set aside to cover wildfire losses for a full century. Subsequent research found roughly 10.7 million credits lost to wildfire, far more than the amount reserved for fire risk.

Opal Mountain illustrates the problem. State records show that the project contributed roughly 80,000 credits to the buffer pool. Yet CarbonPlan estimates that the recent wildfires could result in the termination of the project, which would wipe out all of its roughly 500,000 credits—more than six times what it contributed to the pool.

Such difficulties have long plagued California’s program. A recent analysis by UC Berkeley researchers criticized the state for spending heavily on what they call “highly dubious” offsets from out-of-state projects. The researchers concluded that the program has produced “little-to-no actual climate benefit.”

The program may even be deepening the region’s wildfire problem. Western forests need periodic thinning, brush removal, and controlled burns to maintain healthy conditions and reduce extreme fire risks. But forest-carbon projects often get less active management because landowners can make more money if they grow more wood on each acre. The result, as wildfire news and analysis site The Lookout recently reported, is forests that are often “overstocked, prone to insects, drought, and disease, and flammable.”

At Warm Springs, much of the burned land had been kept from active management in favor of conservation and carbon revenue. “It burned hot because we weren’t able to get in there and treat it and manage it,” the natural resources manager for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs told the Bend Bulletin.

Shawn doesn’t explicitly make the connection, but if fuel treatments aren’t done due to what the Warm Springs person said, it’s actually worse for carbon to have so-called “carbon offsets.”  Maybe it makes more sense to fund fuel treatments themselves instead of the current offset idea.

States, Feds, Community, Homeowner Responsibilities and Funding: Comparing Some Colorado and California Approaches

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A U.S. Forest Service staff member points to a patch of forest where the trees were removed to thin the amount of vegetation. The area in the background was clear-cut as a break to help slow fires. Kevin Moloney/Getty Images This photo is from the Cheng /Thompson piece mentioned at the end of this post. I wanted to highlight the clearcut photo given our ongoing discussions.

 

A few things came to mind when I saw this Colorado Public Radio story..

  1. What originally struck me was this statement :

Like many people working the issue in Colorado, McCombs and others praise their local federal partners. But if there’s another ask right now of Congress, it would be to ensure there is  adequate and qualified federal staff to help get their mitigation projects off the ground.

Pinnow, of the West Region Wildfire Council, said one project they’re working on that’s funded by the federal government requires an archaeological survey.

“Right now, the U.S. Forest Service in this area has no archeologist. And so those projects have been on the shelf and just waiting for more than nine months,” he said. “We borrowed a BLM archeologist to actually approve it on the federal level, but the U.S. Forest Service still has to sign off because that’s where the money came from. They don’t have anyone to even sign off.”

I understand the archeologist issue (if you listen to Chris French,  the point is to redirect positions to the field), but no one to sign off?  That sounds a little odd to me.  Seems like authorities could be delegated. even if there are some people missing. How long does it take to write a delegation of authority? There must be more to the story, so I have a call in to the RO.  I wonder why the reporter didn’t follow up on this.

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In addition, I found this interesting…

2. Given the return on investment, Tim Pinnow, CEO of the West Region Wildfire Council, whose mission is to build wildfire resilient communities in six Western Slope counties, would like to see more funding and focus on hardening homes.

“There’s almost no money anywhere for the home hardening piece, which is actually in terms of saving homes, the most important.”

Grant funding could be used for home hardening, fuel reduction programs — like removing beetle kill — and prescribed burns. Many groups and local governments have shovel-ready projects ready to go if and when funding comes through.

I always like to compare California and Colorado, as they are both D led states and so we can see the issues more clearly without the partisan blinkers.

In California, as I have pointed out, they have a loan program for home hardening and helping people find contractors.  They seem to see it as a state issue.  There are also some that resent their electric and insurance bills going up because “people choose to live in dangerous places.”

In July you might have seen this piece on insurance..

That’s still too much, according to Michael Wara, director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford University, noting the cap is four times the median California home value.

Wara said one way to limit FAIR’s exposure risk is to exclude second homes from the plan and force those homeowners to seek coverage from lightly-regulated insurers in what is known as the “non-admitted” market, which has been expanding as climate change makes properties increasingly uninsurable.

“If you can afford to have a house in Tahoe, then you should not be reliant on what is essentially a subsidy from the rest of the state for your homeowner’s insurance,” he said.

I like the California home hardening and leveraged loan programs, imagined and supported by our friends at Megafire Action.

And if we follow Wara’s logic,  why should taxpayers pay for home hardening or local prescribed burning projects? Yes, the feds own land and have to pay for work on their land.   I just think it’s a broader question.. who pays for hurricane and earthquake improvements in homes?  Should the owner/insurance/county/state/fed split be the same for every kind of protection?

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The article indeed cites a report by Megafire Action but quotes folks that go directly to .. the feds.

A recent study found that for every dollar spent on removing fuels can save up to $7 on the suppression and recovery end. And every $1 invested by the government to harden homes can save $3 in recovery efforts.

Given the return on investment, Tim Pinnow, CEO of the West Region Wildfire Council, whose mission is to build wildfire resilient communities in six Western Slope counties, would like to see more funding and focus on hardening homes.

“There’s almost no money anywhere for the home hardening piece, which is actually in terms of saving homes, the most important.”

Grant funding could be used for home hardening, fuel reduction programs — like removing beetle kill — and prescribed burns. Many groups and local governments have shovel-ready projects ready to go if and when funding comes through.

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Two Rivers Executive Director Rizza agreed funding is key, but so is streamlining the process and providing consistency when it comes to grants and laws. “How the stuff is written, how it’s delivered, how it comes out of these programs. One year it says this, the next year it’s the complete opposite.”

Matt McCombs, Colorado’s state forester, pointed out there’s one funding program in particular he’d like to see renewed.

“Community Wildfire Defense Grant was a program that came out of the bipartisan infrastructure law,” he explained. “That has pumped $50 million into wildfire risk reduction and community resilience in the state of Colorado since its inception.”

He said that funding often goes to places that might not be able to afford to undertake mitigation work on their own. “That’s another great example of where those big federal investments, in leverage with state investments and community-based investments, start to get to the type and the quality and the intensity of the work that we know is necessary to try to respond to not what’s coming, but what’s here.”

He’d also like to see a program renewed and strengthened that allows state and local governments to continue to working with federal partners. It’s called the Good Neighbor Authority, and a number of lawmakers have agreed to introduce bills that do just that.

“The Good Neighbor Authority was invented in Colorado. We are hardwired for collaboration in a state. So let’s keep leaning into doing the most work in the highest risk places as fast as we can because of the speed and intensity of the problem that we’re facing,” he said.

I’ll also contact McCombs and find out his ideas for improving GNA.

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Finally, a few people have sent me this piece. I am a big fan of the folks at CFRI, but I don’t see the three distinct camps they see.. 1. Put ignitions out quickly, 2. manage vegetation through fuel reduction and prescribed fire, and 3.

A third camp says fire is coming regardless, and people have to live with it by accepting and promoting more fire, but allowing it to burn on our terms, when and where it’s safe. This is often called managed wildfire. It sometimes includes creating landscapes and communities that can survive and recover from fire.

I see “prefer prescribed to so-called managed wildfire to reduce fuels” “treat fuels using mechanical treatments” and “home and community hardening.”  I see the home hardening business as that of communities and homeowners, and fuel treatments and PF as a shared responsibility between communities and federal land neighbors, and the role of MF itself as the only issue that remains.   There are at least three camps in the MF world, 1. No never, 2. Build trust via pre decisional NEPA and public involvement as sidebars, then yes. 3. There’s no problem. Anyway, that’s the way I see it, and I think you can also see that from the CPR article, how communities and federal and state partners are working together on community protection, mechanical treatments, and prescribed fire.

Clearcutting, FACTS, and Many Thanks to Sean!

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(see text for definitions)

I’m reposting this today because I’m surprised no one weighed in.. and other posts were published so maybe everyone didn’t see it?

If we had cash or non-cash awards on The Smokey Wire (and maybe we should), Sean would definitely deserve one for taking the time to dive into the mysterious world of FACTS.  So a major thank-you to him!

From Sean:

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Here is a little workup of the FACTS data.

I downloaded the full FACTS dataset. Caveat – FACTS (like all huge, ongoing data projects…) is messy! I am working with it here pretending like it is perfect, but we all need to know that it is not and there are plenty of places with missing or incorrectly classified data.

I first filtered to remove anything earlier than 1905 (pre-FS – you may be surprised but some records go back to the mid-1800s, Forest Reserve days presumably) and later than 2026 (the future hasn’t happened yet as far as I’m aware). Then I filtered to include status “Accomplished” and “Completed”, but not status “Planned”.

I built this spreadsheet with the full list of Activity Names and my calls on whether they count as a clearcut. I did four versions: a strict interpretation and a liberal interpretation of what a clearcut is, one for all even-aged systems (including shelterwood and seed tree, for example), and one for all even-aged and two-aged systems (including what we would call variable retention harvest today, coded in FACTS as two-aged stand clearcut with reserves). You may disagree with my calls, in which case I invite you to propose something better.

Link to “is it a clearcut?” calls:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nn6j8IbTO9g5EzrcQXA2Js04FfCGYUH7?rtpof=true&usp=drive_fs

Who knows exactly what queries were done to build the tables in the post, but what I get is pretty similar.

Clearcut (strict)
2023: 29,007 acres
2024: 24,283 acres
2025: 28,733 acres

The other three definitions are not as good of a match.

Clearcut (liberal)
2023: 34,635 acres
2024: 29,705 acres
2025: 32,917 acres

All even-aged
2023: 51,846 acres
2024: 44,898 acres
2025: 52,483 acres

All even-aged and two-aged
2023: 64,144 acres
2024: 55,520 acres
2025: 64,662 acres

Link to graph over time of National trend:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1X3tDwWlbd_uKoQRdO5-iCRaTMMz1cjBk&usp=drive_fs

Link to acres of harvest per year by each of the four definitions by National Forest:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GsaHjRcXsdzbQmFVDAMhR3ZParjVtDf-?rtpof=true&usp=drive_fs

Link to the full FACTS dataset as a table (340 MB file – no GIS required, you can open it in Excel):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17WiGYUn5cDWuQsvZ1mdFNYhxdkEKDfi1?rtpof=true&usp=drive_fs

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From Sharon:

I’m a bit stuck at the varieties of definitions and how they could add up to meaningful numbers of any kind.  At the 30K level, there is only even-aged and uneven-aged management (or is there?), maybe we should ask a current silviculture prof? Uneven-aged in many places won’t get back intolerant species, which we would need for diversity; and tolerants by themselves are not resilient to wildfires and tend to be host to a variety of diseases and insects. At the same time, they tend to be fairly good (along with LPP) at reproducing themselves, while the intolerant may need more assistance.

Would concerns about NRV and fuels lead us instead to a different taxonomy of treatments, perhaps based on density reduction and ladder fuels? Or are our current definitions not exactly fit for current purposes, but not worth changing? How do these numbers crosswalk with fuels acres accomplished, or do they?

Meanwhile, what do you all think of the exercise of asking the same “why do you clearcut, if you do?” of all forests and seeing what the national story looks like?

 

Why the Forest Service called in the Cows when the Gold Mountain Fire was Almost Contained: Dave Marston

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he Gold Mountain fire burns north of Ouray on Tuesday, June 30, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Grant Martin)

Yes, cows eat grass, otherwise known as fine fuels.  And we should thank Sean Brown, USFS range management and wildfire expert, for arguing for and succeeding in innovative practices!

From the Denver Post by Dave Marston
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When fire commanders try to figure out how to contain a major wildfire, the last thing you might expect them to deploy is a herd of beef cattle. But on the recent Gold Mountain Fire in western Colorado, cows are eating the “fine fuels” along a three-mile fire line on the Big Cimarron River.

Putting that idea into practice five years ago would have required miles of electric fencing and a range rider to gather strays. Now, new technology has changed the game for cattle grazing by putting electronic collars — all solar-powered — on cows and linking them by satellite.

“The Halter Collar is similar to a dog collar, has a tone, vibrate and a shock,” explained Mike Higuera, agricultural manager of Western States Ranches, based in Eckert. An app on a smartphone allows range riders to draw electronic fences and track each cow by GPS.

“Gathering cattle in fall used to take four or more weeks and hundreds of person-hours, but now it’s a few days,” said Higuera.

The idea for using cows to help contain wildfire came from Sean Brown, a 23-year veteran of range management at the U.S. Forest Service, who pulls in overtime organizing logistics for major forest fires near his base in Montrose. He said he and the fire commanders realized that cattle would offer a safer way than setting a hazardous back burn to add to an “indirect” fire line, one away from direct flames.

Once Brown had permission from his bosses, he called Tyler Westhoff, Western States Ranches ranch manager. Westhoff quickly agreed to bring 350 radio-collared cows onto the fringes of the fire zone, which at that point, in mid-August, was 87% contained. Now in mid-September, the fire is 93% contained.

“Tyler flew into action,” Brown said. It turned out that Higuera and Westhoff were relieved to put cows onto their Big Cimarron federal grazing permit. “We’d been trucking water on another permit on the Uncompahgre Plateau, but this is better feed and good water,” said Higuera, who stressed that fire officials were ready to remove the cows if fire conditions turned ugly.

Brown said equipping the cows electronically gave him confidence that they could eat their way to an expanded fire line. This would reduce the burden on fire crews trying to keep the 39,000-acre fire contained until a season-ending event, typically rain or snow.

Westhoff loves what he calls the “Big Cim” grazing permit: “The top of it goes from 8,800 up to 12,000 feet. It’s northern San Juans and a prime grazing permit.” Best of all, he added, “There’s lots of grass.”

Brown took me on a Big Cim tour five days after the herd went to work. Standing in a field where tall grasses were now three inches tall, he explained that cattle are typically kept off burned permits for two years. Nature comes back, Brown said, but without constant herding, cattle can move into sensitive areas and exacerbate erosion.

“We’ll have this herd in the Cimarron Valley next year, and fire-affected areas will be excluded with a virtual fence.”

The wildfire work on the Big Cim is good news for Western States Ranches, which was having a dismal summer. The Gold Mountain Fire started near the tourist town of Ouray, quickly roared across the ranch’s Owl Creek permit outside Ridgway, and traveled 26 miles onto the ranch’s Big Cimarron permit.

“We felt like we had a target on our back,” Higuera said. “We were geared to release cattle above Ridgway, then four days later our evacuated cow camp was in flames.”

What does an electronic Halter Collar cost? The leased equipment costs $96 per cow per season. “But for sprawling operations, when you add up person-hours, diesel, and trucking water, a Halter pays for itself quickly,” Higuera said.

The collars have other uses besides wildfire work, especially for weed control. Often the first grasses to return after a burn are cheatgrass, which grows quickly in spring and then dries to become highly flammable. “But cows love it,” Westhoff said, “and on lower elevation permits, we’ve made it through a couple winters on cheatgrass.”

The ranchers said they were grateful to Brown and fire commanders for letting the cows perform. “Typically, there’s a risk aversion in the agency … but we showed we can be part of the solution,” Higuera said.

As for Brown, he said that sending in cows to expand a fire line was unique: “Never in my 23 years have I ever done something like this.”