Sisters plans for fire season and tree removal project

Fire season is right around the corner, and so is a big project to remove thousands of trees along U.S. Highway 20 west of Sisters.

The Sisters Ranger District hosted an open house on Thursday to tell people about what they can expect with that project and with wildfire prevention efforts and others in the area.

In the fall, officials said they covered 650 acres with prescribed burns. They said a roughly equal area will be burned in the spring, for a total of 1,300 acres. That’s down 200 acres from last year.

“It’s not too wet, it’s not too dry, it’s not too hot, it’s not too windy, the smoke’s not going to all go into town – there’s a lot of factors that make it a good burn day,” said Sisters District Ranger Ian Reid. “We know that if all those things line up and if we can get resources that we can do more than that in the spring, but that’s what we’re planning on.”

A recent report also predicted a drier spring than normal. Reid said that will force them to start prescribed burns sooner than expected.

Each fire season is different. Officials said the severity depends in large part on how the storms line up, and how many lightning strikes hit the area.

But they also said a lot of fires are caused by humans, both accidental and intentional.

So their advice is to check to see whether or not it’s a burn day, if you plan on having a fire. And make sure your fire is completely out before you go anywhere.

The other big topic of the night was the tree removal project.

Starting April 29, more than 2,000 trees will be removed along Highway 20 west of Sisters.

The trees have to be removed because they were affected by herbicide a few years ago. Now, officials said they’re all dying, making this a public safety issue.

They expect this project to be a major disruption to the highway.

“Obviously during that time period between April 29th and before Memorial Day, that’s a period not to be on the highway if you don’t have to,” said Steve Orange, contract administrator for the Sisters Ranger District. “Otherwise, expect pretty substantial traffic delays.”

Orange said there will be closures up to 20 minutes at a time on Highway 20 on weekdays between 7 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

The trees that will be removed extend for 12.5 miles on both sides of the highway.

The Forest Service will be marking the trees starting next week.