Barry Point Fire
The Barry Point Fire was a wildfire that burned over of Oregon and California forest land during the summer of 2012. The fire began on 5 August 2012, the result of a lightning strike. The fire consumed public forest and rangeland as well as private forest and grazing land located in Lake County, Oregon and Modoc County, California. The public lands effected by the fire are administered by the United States Forest Service and the Oregon Department of Forestry. The largest part of the private land was owned by the Collins Timber Company. At the peak of  the firefighting effort, there were 1,423 personnel working on the fire. It took 22 days to fully contain the fire and then an additional three weeks to mop it up. Origin. On 5 August 2012, a thunderstorm passed over southern Oregon and northern California. The storm produced a number of lightning strikes in the Fremont-Winema National Forest. Unfortunately, the storm did not deliver any rain with the lightning. The next morning, a local lookout reported a fire in the Barry Point area, approximately west of Lakeview, Oregon. The Forest Service named it the Barry Point Fire. A combination of  hot dry weather and gusty winds had created dangerous fire conditions in the Fremont-Winema National Forest. Around Barry Point, the fire conditions were exacerbated by heavy forest ground cover and the general inaccessibility of the area. By mid-morning these conditions had produced a high intensity fire with large trees torching off in rapid succession and numerous spot fires spreading the blaze rapidly. The prevailing winds initially drove the fire toward the northeast. However, the wind then shifted unexpectedly, pushing the fire southward. Firefighters battled the blaze for over three weeks as it consumed large tracts of public forest  and rangeland along with private forest and ranch grazing lands. Fire area. The Forest Service originally reported the final size of the fire to be . That was later modified to . Most of the burned area was Federal land. However, forest lands belonging to the State of Oregon, and various private owners were also burned. The burned acreage identified in the preliminary fire report was as follows: After carefully mapping the burned area, the Forest Service changed the official total of acres burned to . The fire covered about north to south and was wide in some places. Approximately of commercial timber  was consumed by the fire with a 75 percent tree mortality. An addition of forest was seriously damaged. During the course of the Barry Point Fires, there were 3 structures destroyed and 3 firefighters injured. According to the Forest Service, the total cost of the fire suppression effort was over $23.2 million. Post-fire activity. Forest restoration began immediately after the fire was contained. The Fremont-Winema and Modoc national forests appointed a joint "Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation Team" to oversee forest restoration activities. Under the team's supervision, Forest Service and Oregon Department of Forestry crews cleared roads , mended fences, repaired culverts, and rehabilitated bulldozer trails. Timber salvage operations began shortly after the fire suppression ended. The Forest Service worked with the Collins Timber Company and the Fremont sawmill in Lakeview to remove dead trees that were still marketable. However, the salvage process was not an easy one. In September 2012, the Fremont-Winema National Forest offered to sell 25 million board feet of salvage timber to Collins. This was because Collins operated the only sawmill in Lakeview, the nearest mill to the salvage area. However, Collins declined to buy the Forest Service timber, choosing instead to focus  on salvaging its own burned timber first. Then in December 2012, the Forest Service offered its salvage timber in a sale open to all bidders, but there were no interested parties. This was due to concerns about the quality of the damaged timber and the distance it would have to be transported. Finally, the Forest Service broke the timber sale into smaller lots near existing roads. By then, Collins had removed much of its burned timber so they acquired some of the Forest Service salvage timber. Ultimately, the Forest Service only salvaged about 9 percent of the timber burned by  the Barry Point Fire. After salvage logging and clearing burned areas, the Forest Service began replanting trees in the Barry Point burn. In 2014, the initial reforestation effort covered about with ponderosa pine seedlings. An additional was replanted in 2015. In 2015, Collins replanted over of timberland as part of a joint forest restoration project with the "Wildlife Conservation Board" and the "Pacific Forest Trust". The project included a $2.5 million grant for wildlife habitat restoration from the conservation groups. In exchange for the grant, Collins and another timber company agreed to offer a conservation easement across of private  land, including approximately unburned forest and meadow lands in northern California. The conservation project will restore habitat for numerous resident and migratory species that are native to northeastern California. Species include mule deer, pronghorn, Rocky Mountain elk, American black bear, and cougar along with bird species such as black-backed woodpeckers, great grey owls, sandhill cranes, goshawks, and bald eagles. Native redband trout will also benefit from the restoration project.