Frequent clearcut logging and single-species tree plantations have been widespread across the industrial forestlands of this region for decades. Simple plantations of young trees on intensively managed lands burned with notable completeness, and many were quickly salvage-logged to become forest products. Cutting at a frequency driven by financial considerations alone may risk the productive capacity of the land; a longer cutting cycle managed by local, family-run firms may prove more sustainable in the long run. The blaze on this tree marks the edge of the logging area to be cut.

This sequence of three images shows stages of the burned forest following fire. First, in March 2021, the blackened young forest that grew after logging of an old forest, now represented by decomposed logs and stumps, is devoid of vegetation. The second image shows vegetation returning in August 2021, but soon logging of burned trees occurred, shown here in January 2022.

Looking along a cutting unit boundary in September of 2021, we see the contrast between production forestry management on one side of the ownership line and practices of a land trust, the McKenzie River Trust, on the other. The Trust is leaving the burned forest to retain biodiversity, nutrients, and carbon to nurture resilience of future forests as they face the uncertainties ahead.