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 a fourth timber sale under the Ashland 2025 Strategic Operations for Safety (SOS) Environmental Assessment. The Thom Bone timber sale will remove dead and dying trees on approximately 530 acres of public land in the Applegate Valley.

“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 the SOS project. Public input resulted in modifications to the project design. Many of the acres approved for treatment are in locations where environmental organizations have protested, appealed, or litigated previous timber sales, resulting in overstocked stands that now include significant dead and dying trees following years of drought.

The Thom Bone timber sale will be auctioned in a competitive bidding process. Revenue from timber sold through SOS timber sales is shared between the U.S. Treasury and 18 western Oregon counties.

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.