U S FOREST SERVICE

Can you guess the COVID infection rate on Forest Service wildfire lines last summer? Two Percent. Just two percent, thats all.

More than half the nation's federal forest estate – some 100 million acres – is either dying, dead or has already burned. About 73 million acres have burned over the last 10 years – most of it in western national forests. 9.6 million acres this year.

Petition for a call to action to preserve our national forests.

Frank Carroll, a Colorado forester and wildfire expert, speaks with Evergreen founder, Jim Petersen, concerning managed fire and his assessment of Petersen's book "First, put out the Fire!"

The National Association of Forest Service Retirees (NAFSR) is dedicated to sustaining the Forest Service mission and adapting to today's and tomorrow’s challenges.

This is the tenth part of "Felt Necessities: Engines of Forest Policy," a series of essays tracing the history of the conservation movement in the United States, and its influence on the nation's ever-shifting forest policy.

Part 11 of this series is a lecture that Evergreen Founder James D. Petersen presented to a graduate-level forestry class at the University of Idaho in January 2020.

This is the ninth part of "Felt Necessities: Engines of Forest Policy," a series of essays tracing the history of the conservation movement in the United States, and its influence on the nation's ever-shifting forest policy.

If you've been reading Evergreen in the past few years or longer, you’ve seen a raft of articles that look at the US Forest Service with a critical eye.

I was last in Louisville about 10 years ago. An old and dear friend who owned several thoroughbreds asked me to represent him at the Derby...

Dick asked me if I knew where we might find a map showing all of the timberland ownerships in northern Idaho – not just an ordinary map, but one that had an overlay that shows at risk federal forest lands – these being lands that pose an insect, disease or fire risk to adjacent private and state timberland owners.

The United States Forest Service was barely three years old when it sent Thornton Munger west in September of 1908 to investigate the encroachment on...

When Mike Albrecht asked me if I'd be willing to spend some time with you this afternoon, he said he was looking for someone who could provide you with a vision for the future that is both optimistic and realistic. Then he added that he wasn’t sure that the words “optimistic” and “realistic” could exist in the same sentence.

This is the first in a series of in-depth reports exploring the history, contributions and future of FIA – the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program – easily the least known national program housed within the United States Forest Service.

Mr. Rains wrote the President a five-page letter on June 19. We posted it on our site then and it can be read again here. After President Trump's Latest visit to the site of the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, Mr. Rains writes to the President once more

Some fire ecologists tell us what we are experiencing is “the new normal.” Bullshit. There's nothing normal about our western wildfire nightmare.

Improved organizational efficiency – as we have discussed it here -would be one of four top priorities. The other three are: restoring fire to the landscape, landscape scale conservation along a complex rural to urban land gradient, and community stability...

We have known of Mr. Rains and his exceptional work for many years, most recently through the National Wildfire Institute, founded by our colleague, Bruce Courtright. When we were preparing questions for Interim Forest Service Chief, Victoria Christiansen, Mr. Rains volunteered to answer the same questions...

Now that Congress has resolved the fire funding mess – at least temporarily - Interim Forest Service Chief, Vicki Christiansen, has had much to say about how she intends to more aggressively attack these fires and their primary underlying cause.

Most all of us have rolled the dice in Monopoly a time or two. Buying up properties on the Boardwalk can be tons of fun until you land in Jail. That's when its lovely to have a “Get-out-of-jail-free” card in your hand. It sure beats having to sell properties to bail yourself out of the clink.

Federal Court has ordered the United States Congress, the U.S. Forest Service, the federal Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fishers Service to make this statement about the health effects of secondhand wildfire smoke...

In the wake of PBS NewsHour's expose on sexual harassment in the U.S. Forest Service, and Wednesday’s resignation of Tony Tooke, Chief of the Forest Service - we have collected some questions and observations on the issue. The firestorm of misogyny is in full burn.

The bottom line here is that the War on the West will continue in the halls of Congress for as long as we allow it - and for as long as we allow it to fester, the West's publicly treasured National Forests will continue to die and burn to the ground.

We who own this damned wildfire mess need to start asking Congress some tough questions. I can think of no better place to start than the Forest Service's draft plan for picking up the pieces at Rice Ridge. Of 160,000 acres burned, the agency proposes to salvage some standing dead timber from 5,947 acres.

"A proposal for structural and cultural transformation and a U.S. Forest Service Academy for entry-level personnel By Lyle Laverty, Rich Stem, Roger Deaver, and Les Joslin" January 15, 2014

Speech delivered at the 2017 Family Forest Landowners and Managers Conference, by Jim Petersen, Founder and directory of Evergreen. “Idaho's Working Forests: Are they working for you?” University Inn, Moscow, Idaho Monday, March 27, 2017

The U.S. Forest Service estimates that 90 million acres of the nation's federal forest estate are in Condition Class 3 or 2 – a fire ecologists’ rating system that attempts to account for the ecological damage a wildfire might do to a forest. Class 3 forests are said to be “ready to burn,” while Class 2 forests soon will be.

Our country's National Forests – once viewed as the gold standard by which all other public forest ownerships were judged – are dying and burning by the millions of acres annually. Their precipitous decline signals a forest health crisis unprecedented in American history.

It appears from the outside that the Forest Service organization is struggling to find its way in an increasingly complex society and environment.