Service foresters help landowners develop plans for long-term forestland management. Key components of these plans are forest resource protection, harvest rotation, and replanting. Landowners also may seek advice from the Oregon State University Extension Service or from private consulting foresters. The agency administers the Forest Resource Trust, a tree-planting program that converts underproducing forestland into healthy, productive forestland. The trust was created by the 1993 Legislature, and provides financial and technical assistance to non-industrial private forestland owners.
Funding is provided as an investment in a landowner's forest.
Trust funds are repaid when the landowner harvests the forest. The Department of Forestry also administers federal programs that provide information and technical and financial assistance to help non-industrial forestland owners with management planning, reforestation, and forest resource protection. These infestations are due in part to many years of keeping all fire out of these stands resulting in dense tree stands, and movement towards species less resistant to fire. Options used for reducing the risk of wildfire include salvage logging, controlled burning, and pre-commercial thinning. These silvicultural practices interrupt the continuity of fuels, affecting the ability of wildfire to spread, and potentially reducing the size of future fires.