From the Fields - Shaun Crook

By Shaun Crook, Tuolumne County forester 

Operators are getting back to the woods and working on mastication, or fuel-reduction projects. Our company is getting ready for the traditional logging season that begins in the coming weeks. Once we return to the woods, we’ll be logging and removing biomass east of Sonora as part of a U.S. Forest Service stewardship contract. In our area of the Stanislaus National Forest, we’re in the middle of about a thousand-acre mastication project, and other operators are doing similar jobs. More of these projects will be bid on in the coming months. Many projects happening on national forestland are for removing submerchantable biomass, which is turned into wood chips and processed at a cogeneration facility. More traditional logging jobs on private land are happening by others, such as those operating for Sierra Pacific Industries.

A few local loggers were able to operate this winter because the conditions worked out. The Sierra Pacific sawmill needed some larger logs, and that is what loggers went after to fill the gap. The mill that takes small logs has enough inventory to make it to mid-summer. Because of the oversupply, prices, particularly for white fir, are lower than they’ve been in the recent past. If you are a timberland owner trying to sell logs, it’s not the best market conditions for small white fir.

Last year was a pretty mild fire season in California. Conventional wisdom tells me this year is going to be about the same on timber ground and on national forestland. The lower, 3,000-foot elevation, which contains brush and chapparal, has received good water, but there is a lot of untreated brush and growth, so I worry about our foothill counties. This material, regardless of the precipitation received, will burn hot, so it is important to take care of any fire starts immediately. My crystal ball says it may be a lower-elevation fire season as opposed to the forest fires we’ve had in years going back to the Dixie Fire and others.