Restoration Timeline

Forest Restoration Timeline

Restoring our dry, fire-adapted forests in Central Oregon is a multi-step process carried out over many years and requiring collaboration among a diverse team of forest scientists, loggers, fire experts, community leaders, and volunteers. These important forest restoration steps are used together to improve the health of our forest, reduce the risk of out-of-control wildfires, reduce the severity of future wildfires when they do occur, and keep our communities and firefighters safer.

careful planning forest restoration deschutes national forest

Step 1. U.S. Forest Service foresters, wildlife biologists, hydrologists, soil scientists, archaeologists, botanists, and other experts work together with the public to prioritize where and what kind of restoration work should occur in the forest to improve wildlife habitat, create healthier forests and streams, and reduce wildfire risk, while minimizing potential negative impacts to recreation, wildlife, land or water.

Step 2. Removing some of the small and medium trees in the forest, also known as thinning, reduces competition for the limited amount of water in our dry environment on the east side of the Cascades, leaving more room for the remaining trees to grow. Clumps of un-thinned trees are left to provide places for wildlife to hide, while small openings between trees are created to allow snow to reach the ground, replenishing soils and streams, and allowing native grasses and wildflowers to flourish.

mowing burning logging deschutes national forest

Step 3. In the absence of low-intensity fire, flammable shrubs like bitterbrush, manzanita, and snowbrush have filled in the forest floor, crowding out native grasses and wildflowers, and increasing the risk that fires climb into the canopies of trees. Mowing helps reduce this risk, creates space for native grasses and wildflowers to grow, and prepares the forest for the final step, controlled burning.

Step 4. Controlled burns, also known as prescribed fires, are conducted in the spring and fall by teams of experts under specific conditions of temperature, wind, and humidity, allowing for low-intensity fires that primarily move along the ground consuming needles, pine cones, branches, shrubs, and small trees. Controlled burns improve habitat for plants and animals that depend on fire, recycling nutrients, and sustaining a healthy forest ecosystem.

We Count on the Forest, Now the Forest is Counting on Us.

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Recent News

  • Trail Closure Updates for Phils Trail area
    Trail Closure Updates for Phils Trail area

    Restoration Work near Phil's Trail area Popular mountain biking trails will be temporarily closed. You may have noticed some activity in the forests west of Bend. Restoration work (thinning, mowing, and prescribed burning) near the Phil's Trail area aims to…

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  • Prescribed Burning in Progress
    Prescribed Burning in Progress

    Prescribed Burning locations across Central Oregon With the arrival of favorable weather conditions, fire managers on the Deschutes National Forest will begin igniting prescribed burns across our area over the next few weeks. This will include several high-visibility burns around…

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  • Mowing to occur near Deschutes River recreation areas
    Mowing to occur near Deschutes River recreation areas

    Recreationists should keep their distance from mowing equipment for their safety Posted May 26, 2021:  Heavy equipment will be mowing national forest lands located west of Bend and south of Century Drive now and into much of the summer unless…

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