MTJP CORPS · MORE THAN JUST PARKS ·MTJP Corps
← Mission 44 · Southwest Tiller Fuel Break Project
MTJP CORPS · MORE THAN JUST PARKS ·44
Mission 44 · Umpqua National Forest, OR

Umpqua National Forest

The agency files it as “Southwest Tiller Fuel Break Project”

Closes today

Anyone can write to the agency about this until October 28, and it has to answer. What you send before then joins the file a judge is allowed to look at later.

The sentence we think is wrong

“Within LSR, plantation thinning prescriptions will focus on low residual density, uneven spacing, leaving trees with large limbs, broken tops, etc. for wildlife.”

The agency wrote that in its own document, under Late Successional Reserve (LSR). Nobody has been out to check it. A dated photograph either backs it up or ends it.

How you settle it

Walk into the thinning units marked as plantations inside the Late Successional Reserve areas near Tiller and photograph the trees: trunk size, canopy, big old snags and downed logs. Photos of wide old trunks, layered canopy and large snags in a unit called a plantation would show the stand is not a young planted block.

The decision

The Tiller Ranger District on the Umpqua National Forest proposes commercial thinning on 4,051 acres in stands under 80 years old, noncommercial thinning on 2,398 acres, and prescribed burning on 10,481 acres to create roadside shaded fuelbreaks along 82 road miles. The project also includes site prep for a new Remote Access Weather Station, closure of 2.2 miles of roads, and 40 culvert improvemen

Read the whole thing, and write to the agency about it

How to record it so it counts

  1. 01Stand in the patch of forest the document names. Agencies mark these with a numbered tag, a sign or colored flagging tied to a tree; photograph it if you find one, and don’t touch it.
  2. 02Pick the five largest trees within about 20 meters of where you stand. Photograph each with a person, a trekking pole or a tape in the frame for scale.
  3. 03If you have a tape, measure each trunk around at chest height and write the number down. Circumference in inches is fine; we convert.
  4. 04Photograph the canopy straight up, and any standing dead trees (snags) and big downed logs.
  5. 05Turn slowly and take a photo every quarter turn: four photos, one 360.
  6. 06Write one paragraph: what the stand looks like to you, in your own words.
What would count
  • A scale reference in the frame. A wide shot of big trees proves little; a tape does.
  • The measurement, written down, beside the photo it belongs to.
  • That marker somewhere in your set of photos, so nobody can argue you were in the wrong patch of woods.
All of it, with the phone settings, in the field guide
Are you going?

Say yes or no. It tells the next person whether anyone has this ground covered, and it is the only way we know a request was answered rather than just read. You can change your mind any time, and nobody follows up.

Join, then say you’re going

Nobody has answered yet

Before you go
  1. Public land only. Plenty of land inside a national forest or park boundary is privately owned, and that is not yours to walk on. A gate or a closure sign means stop. Check the rules for the specific place you are going, because they differ.
  2. Don’t touch survey stakes, flagging, equipment or anything a crew left. Photograph it; leave it.
  3. Don’t approach crews, contractors or agency staff about the project. Don’t interfere with any operation.
  4. Wildlife at a distance. No drones in wilderness or anywhere they’re prohibited. Stay off closed roads and trails.
  5. If you’re not sure, don’t. Weather, terrain, water, fire and people are your call, and yours alone.

More Than Just Parks doesn’t direct where you go or what you do. Terms.