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Experts tell legislature Douglas-fir dieback has left hundreds of thousands of acres at elevated fire risk
Summary
Scientists, foresters and local officials told a House committee that Douglas-fir mortality has affected roughly 600,000 acres since 2015, killed an estimated 1.74 billion board feet, and created hazardous fuel conditions that raise wildfire risk and impose large removal costs on private landowners and communities.
A multi‑agency panel on Sept. 30 told the legislature that an ongoing Douglas‑fir dieback episode in southern Oregon has already affected large swaths of federal and private forestland and is raising wildfire and infrastructure risks.
Max Bennett, a retired OSU extension forester, said the dieback began around 2015 and accelerated after the 2021 heat dome. He cited a US Forest Service and EcoNorthwest analysis indicating about 600,000 acres affected since 2015 and roughly 1,740,000,000 board feet of timber killed, with about 60% of mortality on federal lands and 40% on private nonindustrial woodland.
"The dieback seems to be occurring primarily on hot and dry sites," Bennett said, and called attention to large, older trees dying on interior valley sites once dominated by oak and pine. The resulting "snag patches" and downed wood create a hazardous fuel complex that makes firefighting more dangerous and costly, he added.
Nick Hale of the Oregon Department of Forestry told the committee the agency is tracking mortality via aerial detection and landscape inventory and recommended management responses that include reducing stand density where appropriate and favoring drought-adapted species on marginal sites to build long-term landscape resiliency.
Chris Chambers, forestry officer for Ashland Fire & Rescue, described a local response that mapped dead and dying trees adjacent to infrastructure and trails, marked 1,262 dead and dying trees for removal, and completed approximately 420 acres of response work using helicopter logging at a gross cost of $1,100,000; the city recovered about 40% of that sum through log sales and other receipts and used grants to cover part of the expense. Chambers estimated the value of improvements protected within a quarter mile of the project at about $81,000,000.
Terry Fairbanks of the Southern Oregon Forest Restoration Collaborative summarized economic and operational impacts: an estimated $1.1 billion in lost timber value since 2015, $500 million in potential road-hazard costs, and roughly 12,500 arterial miles (across the six-county area) passing through severely affected zones. He and other panelists stressed barriers to large-scale responses, including fragmented ownership, constrained processing capacity, limited forester capacity for outreach, and the 25% match requirement for some federal emergency funds such as EFRP.
Policy discussion focused on reforestation rules and waiver processes under the Forest Practices Act and on ways to coordinate funding and technical assistance for small landowners. Committee members asked whether reforestation requirements and county tax-deferral consequences can be aligned with changing site conditions; agency representatives said site-class–based reforestation standards and limited waiver processes exist but noted the tax and administrative consequences can be complex.
The panel urged coordinated funding, increased technical assistance, and logistics planning (processing and aggregation) to avoid escalating costs and to protect communities. Committee members asked staff to develop policy options for consideration in the 2026 session.
Next steps: agencies and local governments recommended pursuing coordinated grant strategies and targeted landowner assistance; the committee closed the hearing and moved on to the day's next informational topic.
