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SUNNY Temp: 53 °F Wind: CLM at 0 mph Thursday, November 21, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend September 16, 2002 Medford forester Brian Schlaefli surveys the devastated slope in the Timbered Rock fire area above Elk Creek, where thousands of young trees were consumed by the fire. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Fire ate 20 years of timber work ‘The clock is set to zero,’ says the forester whose timber-growth research went up in smoke By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune Brian Schlaefli lost more than trees when the Timbered Rock fire raged across the hills above Elk Creek. The Medford forester lost 20 years of work. Schlaefli grows trees for Boise (formerly Boise Cascade). The Timbered Rock fire burned about 9,100 acres of Boise timberland in July and early August. Schlaefli had walked much of that ground himself and watched many of the trees start the long, slow journey from seedlings to useful logs. "When I get up here it’s hard for me to absorb the magnitude of it yet," he said, walking through the burn area two months to the day after the fire broke out on July 13. "I’ve invested my career in this area, thinking it was well on its way to becoming a forest on its own. Now the clock is set to zero and we begin again." Boise is the largest private land owner in the 84,000-acre Elk Creek drainage and also the burn area, which covered about 27,000 acres. The fire consumed more Boise land in about 10 days than the company had lost to fire in Southern Oregon during the previous 20 years. Much of Boise’s burned land is covered with dead trees too small to salvage at a profit. Company mills can utilize logs that are as small as 18 feet with a 5-inch top diameter, but many of the burned trees aren’t that big. "The trees are small and dead," he said. "That’s the story of two-thirds of our acres out here. "That’s where the value was lost in a fire like this," he said, showing a visitor a charred plantation. "You’re expecting trees to grow until they’re old enough to harvest. It’s hard to quantify the value of that growth that was lost. "In just a few more years some of these trees would have been old enough to salvage. Anything you would have liked to have done, in terms of good forestry, is gone." Thousands of acres of young trees were consumed when the Timbered Rock fire burned out of control during the last week of July. More trees died in the following days when firefighters "burned out" areas in front of the fire to stop it by depriving it of fuel. The loss of one particular plantation hit Schlaefli especially hard. Boise created a study area near Flat Creek in 1980 to study whether fast-growing trees could produce wood as strong as the fiber from trees that grow more slowly. Schlaefli helped lay out the site as one of his first projects for Boise, and he’d marked the trees’ steady growth every year except for a brief stint between 1986 and 1990 when he worked for the company in Astoria. "It’s a lot like having your home burn," he said, surrounded by a neat grid of lifeless, blackened trees. "It’s not just your house. You’ve got a lot of things invested in it that you never get back. You can never get back the personal investment that you have. "It becomes more than a research plot. It’s what you’re learning as a professional forester to help trees grow better." The fire ripped through the 22-year-old test trees with so much heat that most of the needles were stripped from the trees. "This is an area where it blew up," he said, noting the absence of humus on the forest floor. "The soil is pretty baked. "We were within a few years of getting it thinned," he said, "so we could take logs out of it." Boise foresters are still calculating the value of the trees lost in the fire and how much it will cost to replace them, Schlaefli said. "We lost millions of dollars (of investment), and it’s going to take millions of dollars to put it back." He compared the financial loss to someone buying a certificate of deposit. "Not only did we lose the interest, but the principal is gone as well. And now we have to buy another CD." The fire also damaged resources that can’t be assigned a dollar value. Stream enhancements that Boise built to improve fish habitat were damaged, and at least a dozen spotted-owl nests were also burned, Schlaefli said. Tree-planters will eventually set 400 to 500 trees per acre on all the acreage that’s suitable for commercial forestry. Schlaefli said that could easily amount to 8,000 acres and more than 3 million trees over the next few years. He and other Boise foresters will supervise the planting, brush control, and other maintenance projects that will be needed to transform the brown-and-black hills into green forests again. "The planting’s only the first part," he said. "You have to grow and nurture the trees. "For the next seven years, a lot of my time, and my staff’s time, will be consumed up here. These 9,000 acres up here will be our life." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy webmaster feedback A D V E R T I S E R S