EDITORIAL: Only fire seems to kickstart work to protect public forests

Lightning on Aug. 22 started the McCully Fire, which burned about 13,600 acres north and northwest of Sumpter. We probably won’t know for at least a few years the extent of the damage the fire caused, but one unanticipated benefit of the blaze is obvious now. While firefighters were trying to slow the fire’s spread, other crews, farther away, were cutting trees to create firebreaks — strips along roads where firefighters, thanks to the removal of the trees, would have a better chance of halting the blaze in case it moved in those directions. Many of these unburned trees, along the Cracker Creek Road north of Sumpter and near Deer Creek northwest of the town, are big enough to be sawed into lumber. The U.S. Forest Service sold about 2 million board-feet of timber — roughly 1.3 million from Cracker Creek and 604,000 from Deer Creek. Rude Logging of John Day bought the logs for about $57,000. That’s hardly a bounty of raw material for a mill.

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