Collaborative Restoration on the Malheur National Forest
Blue Mountains Forest Partners
We're working together to restore the southern Blue Mountains, a seasonally dry, fire prone landscape in eastern Oregon
Tree ring reconstructions and historical accounts show that the southern Blue Mountains used to experience frequent surface fire that promoted rich grass understories and widely spaced old growth trees.
Typical forest conditions in the Blue Mountains in 1913.
More than 100 years of fire suppression, logging of old trees, and unregulated grazing has created a landscape of dense forests and heavy fuel loading.
Dense forests are more vulnerable to high severity fire and elevated levels of old growth mortality from drought and insects.
Restoration thinning removes young trees that compete with old-growth trees and increases the survivability of old trees in the face of drought, fire, and insect attack. Thinning allows managers to re-introduce low intensity surface fire which will reduce surface fuels, protecting communities and old trees. In the last ten years, almost a quarter of a million acres have been restored with thinning and/or low prescribed fire.
Scroll through the following slideshow to learn about the benefits of restoration thinning in the Malheur National Forest.
2016
This dry ponderosa pine forest was overly dense prior to thinning, causing stress to the trees and resulting in a high fire danger.
2019
Here is the same forest several years after a restoration thinning treatment. Residual trees can access sufficient water and sunlight, which helps them resist fire and insect attack. Treatments like this can also stimulate the growth of understory vegetation, providing cover and food for a rich diversity of wildlife species.
2016
In this forest stand, grand fir has grown in since fire suppression, leading to greater stress on old-growth ponderosa pine. Leaving the grand fir at this density would likely eventually result in mortality of ponderosa pine from drought stress or fire.
2022
Removing the grand fir has resulted in the restoration of a more open, ponderosa pine forest with less fire potential, similar to those that occurred prior to fire suppression.
2019
Aspen stands provide unique habitat and some of the highest biodiversity in the Blue Mountains, but conifers have encroached on many aspen stands and prevented aspen stands from regenerating. Partial removal of conifers was undertaken in this stand to stimulate aspen regeneration.
2022
Just a few years after partial conifer removal, aspen has re-established across the hillside.
You can explore where forest restoration on the Malheur National Forest has been implemented with the maps below.
Wildfires have significantly affected the Malheur National Forest. This map shows all wildfires between 1984 and 2021 that have impacted the Malheur National Forest.
This map shows the restoration thinning and prescribed underburning treatments that have been implemented on the Malheur National Forest.
