Bureau of Land Management decreasing wildfire risk, improving public safety

MEDFORD, Ore. – To reduce the risk of wildland fire and pursue public and firefighter safety, the Bureau of Land Management has approved three timber sales in the Applegate Valley. The sales will remove dead and dying trees, that could fuel wildfires into megafires, on about 1,745 acres of public land.

“Many times this summer, firefighters performed direct attack on wildland fires because of hazard tree mitigation,” said Lauren Brown, BLM Ashland Field Manager. “The 2025 Upper Applegate Fire and Lick Gulch Fire are just two examples where removing dead and dying trees kept fires small, reduced the impact to homes and communities, and minimized the negative impacts and cost of wildfire. When we aren’t allowed to follow our forest management plans to remove excess dead trees from the landscape, fires are bigger, take longer to put out, and create more hazardous smoke in adjacent communities.”

There are more than 90,000 acres of dead and dying trees on BLM-administered lands in southwest Oregon. Hazard trees are one of the leading causes of death for wildland firefighters.

“It’s important to remove these trees while they still have merchantable value,” said Jesse Kiene, BLM Ashland Field Office Fire Management Specialist. “If we don’t act now, it will increase the cost of hazardous fuels reduction work. When trees are not removed while they still have some economic viability, that burden falls onto the American taxpayer. When these projects are overly litigated or delayed, some of these areas won’t get the treatments needed to reduce fire risk to local communities.”

The BLM hosted multiple public comment periods and a field trip to obtain public comments about these projects. The comments resulted in modifications to the project design. Many of the acres are in locations where environmental organizations have protested, appealed, or litigated previous timber sales, resulting in overstocked trees that now stand dead or dying because they weren’t able to compete for resources in prolonged drought conditions.

The timber sales will be auctioned in a competitive bidding process September 25. The sales offer an estimated 17.4 million board feet of timber, appraised at $1,680,820.50. Revenue from timber sold in these sales is shared between the U.S. Treasury and 18 western Oregon counties. The timber sales are:

• Holcomb Hollow, 5.6 million board feet, 679 acres
• Chopper Styx, 5.2 million board feet, 437 acres
• Apple Saws, 6.6 million board feet, 629 acres

BLM forest management provides for safer communities, supports economic security, conserves fish and wildlife habitat, and decreases costs of energy production. Local communities rely on jobs that come from BLM forests, and timber from public land keeps local industry thriving.

Learn more about the project at Ashland 2025 Strategic Operations for Safety EA.