The Grasshopper Fire currently burning on the Mt. Hood National Forest should be a wake-up call to communities across Oregon, especially here in Lane County.
This is not simply a natural disaster. It is a case study in a public policy failure that has become increasingly common across Oregon. Unless something changes, the Willamette National Forest could be next.
For years, the Wasco County Forest Collaborative, a diverse coalition representing conservation, timber, recreation, Tribal and local government, and other interests, worked alongside the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon Department of Forestry to develop the Grasshopper Restoration Project.
The project was designed to improve forest health, reduce hazardous fuels, protect wildlife habitat, maintain public access, and lower wildfire risk. The treatment area covered roughly 5,000 acres out of the Mt. Hood National Forest’s 1.1 million acres.
Oregon Wild, an advocacy organization that chose not to participate in the collaborative process, sued to stop the project. To move forward, the Forest Service ultimately settled the case, modifying less than 2 percent of the project area and paying Oregon Wild $55,000 in attorney fees. The restoration work has not been done.
But the litigation did not stop there. Earlier this month, Oregon Wild and WildEarth Guardians filed another notice of intent to sue over four additional Mt. Hood projects, including fuel reduction work intended to increase forest resilience and reduce the risk of large-scale wildfire.
More delay. More process. More costs. Then reality hit.
Two weeks later, lightning ignited the Grasshopper Fire and thousands of acres identified for restoration and treatment are now burning up. Wildlife habitat has been damaged. Recreation sites have been affected or closed. Old-growth stands are burning. More than 25 million board feet of timber identified for removal has been lost. The Highland Ditch irrigation system, which serves approximately 3,600 acres of farmland, is now at risk.
Millions of taxpayer dollars and years of collaborative work are literally going up in smoke.
Adding insult to injury, taxpayers often help fund this cycle. Under the Equal Access to Justice Act, organizations that sue the federal government can recover attorney fees. In this case, taxpayers helped subsidize litigation that delayed collaborative wildfire mitigation efforts on a landscape now being consumed by wildfire.
Why should Lane County care?
Because the same organizations are using the same tactics on the Willamette National Forest.
Planning for the Young’s Rock Rigdon Project south of Oakridge began nearly a decade ago as part of the larger Rigdon Collaborative Landscape Restoration Project. Local stakeholders spent years hosting public meetings, field tours, presentations, and community discussions. The Forest Service completed its analysis for Young’s Rock and signed a decision to move forward in 2023.
Then came the lawsuit.
Oregon Wild, which participated in the process and agreed to the treatments proposed by the Collaborative, along with WildEarth Guardians, later challenged the project in court.
Last year, the Emigrant Fire burned just south of the project area before pushing toward planned treatment units. Fortunately, it affected only a small portion of the landscape identified for restoration. But the litigation continues, treatment remains delayed, and Oakridge is left hoping it does not run out of time.
The lesson from the Grasshopper Fire and the Emigrant Fire is not that forest management failed. It is that forest management was delayed until it was too late. It is a reminder that even when a vast majority of the public – and the professionals legally tasked with stewarding our lands – agree about what needs to be done to protect our forests and communities, it just takes one lawsuit to unravel hard-won consensus.
Congress should take a hard look at a system that rewards grandstanding and delay, while communities, watersheds, wildlife habitat, and public forests bear the consequences. When litigation repeatedly overrides the judgment of foresters, scientists, land managers, and local collaboratives, the result is not better stewardship.
It is more smoke. More acres burned. More habitat lost. And more opportunities squandered to act before disaster strikes. We all lose.
If you want change, contact Senator Wyden, Senator Merkley, and Representative Val Hoyle and ask them to lead on forest management and litigation reforms. Otherwise, we will continue to get the same results.
Travis Joseph is a Springfield resident and the chief operating officer and president of the American Forest Resource Council.
