What the Government's Own Scientists Say About Logging and Wildfires

"Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate, and fuels accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity."
— Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, 1996. Final Report to Congress

"Logged areas generally showed a strong association with increased rate of spread and flame length, thereby suggesting that tree harvesting could affect the potential fire behavior within landscapes. In general, rate of spread and flame length were positively correlated with the proportion of area logged in the sample watersheds."
— Historical and Current Forest Landscapes in Eastern Oregon and Washington. Part II: Linking Vegetation Characteristics to Potential Fire Behavior and Related Smoke Production (PNW-GTR-355)

"As a by-product of clearcutting, thinning, and other tree-removal activities, activity fuels create both short- and long-term fire hazards to ecosystems. The potential rate of spread and intensity of fires associated with recently cut logging residues is high, especially the first year or two as the material decays. High fire-behavior hazards associated with the residues can extend, however, for many years depending on the tree. Even though these hazards diminish, their influence on fire behavior can linger for up to 30 years in the dry forest ecosystems of eastern Washington and Oregon."
— Historical and Current Forest Landscapes in Eastern Oregon and Washington. Part II: Linking Vegetation Characteristics to Potential Fire Behavior and Related Smoke Production (PNW-GTR-355)

"Fire severity has generally increased and fire frequency has generally decreased over the last 200 years. The primary causative factors behind fire regime changes are effective fire prevention and suppression strategies, selection and regeneration cutting, domestic livestock grazing, and the introduction of exotic plants."
— Integrated Scientific Assessment for Ecosystem Management in the Interior Columbia Basin (PNW-GTR-382)

"The high rate of human-caused fires has generally been associated with high recreational use in areas of higher road densities."
— An Assessment of Ecosystem Components in the Interior Columbia Basin and Portions of the Klamath and Great Basins--Volume II (PNW-GTR-405)

"Mechanically removing fuels (through commercial timber harvesting and other means) can also have adverse effects on wildlife habitat and water quality in many areas. Officials told GAO that, because of these effects, a large-scale expansion of commercial timber harvesting alone for removing materials would not be feasible. However, because the Forest Service relies on the timber program for funding many of its activities, including reducing fuels, it has often used this program to address the wildfire problem. The difficulty with such an approach, however, is that the lands with commercially valuable timber are often not those with the greatest wildfire hazards."
— Government Accounting Office: "Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy is Needed to Address Catastrophic Wildfire Threats" (GAO/RCED-99-65)

Former Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas, in testimony before a Senate subcommittee on August 29, 1994, acknowledged that: 1) the Forest Service logs in insect infested stands not to protect the ecology of the area, but to remove trees before their timber commodity value is reduced by the insects; and 2) that the Forest Service fights forest fires to maintain high timber commodity value of stands, not to protect forest ecosystems.