Mt. Hood National Forest

What is the Forest Service doing at Sportsman's Park?

Area Closure

• Fire Prevention

What can I do to protect my property?

• Suppression
• Fuels Management

Logging (Thinning)

Prescribed Fire

Area Closure

The area previously logged by Dodge Logging Company (reference map below) is closed to all uses for the benefit of area protection. Due to the amount of short stumps in the area, it is considered unsafe for recreationists. All recreation, camping, hunting, and other uses are prohibited in this area until the area is deemed safe for the resource and for recreationists.

The Forest Service is working on three different levels to protect your property from the risk of catastrophic wildfire while also improving forest health.  

These areas are fire prevention, fire suppression and fuels management.

Fire prevention

Fire prevention has become an important tool to limiting the number of unintentional human caused fires. Think of Smokey Bear's message: “Only YOU can prevent wild fires!” Although we can not control lightning, the most common natural cause of wildfire, we can educate the public land users to prevent additional fires from starting.

What can I do to protect my home and property from wildfire?

For more information on what the Forest Service is doing in your area, how to protect your property, and what the Forest Service is doing to protect you from wildfire, please visit the new sign at the junction of FS Road 4820 and the Rock Creek Campground.

Fire suppression

When you think of fire crews putting out wildfires in order to save lives, property and resources, you are thinking of fire suppression. For decades, fire suppression was considered the only “correct” response to fire. We now better understand the importance of fire in the natural ecosystem, but continue to actively fight fires that threaten homes, property, and other fragile resources.

Fuels management

Three factors—known as the Fire Behavior Triangle—determine the way a fire burns. The three factors are weather, topography, and fuel. A change in one of these factors causes a change in the fire behavior that may determine how hot it burns and how fast it spreads. We are unable to change the weather or the local topography, but we can change the amount and arrangement of fuel. This is the basis for fuel reduction treatments.

Thinning/Logging

Thinning, also called biomass harvesting, is used to reduce the risk of crown fires by opening up the stand and creating more space between tree crowns—the tops of trees.   This helps prevent fires from spreading tree to tree through the crowns.

 

 

 

 

 

Prescribed burning

The purpose of the prescribed burn is to reduce the risk of devastating wildfire, by removing accumulated fuels—needles and branches—and ladder fuels that will carry the fire up off the ground and into the taller parts of the forest where firefighters can not reach it.