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Klamath National Forest 

 4. Dillon Salvage Sale 



Ranger District Volume (mmbf) Project Acres Logging Acres 



Happy Camp 26 6.529 2,176 



Location 



Dillon Creek is located about 12 miles northwest of the town of Orleans on the California side of the Siskiyou 

 Mountains, in the heart of Wild Siskiyou. 



Impact 



Oillon Creek is one of the most pristine watersheds remaining in California. The Clinton Northwest Forest 

 Plan designated Oillon Creek a Key Watershed and established a Late Successional Reserve in the heart of the 

 watershed. It is one of only six streams in California that continues to supports summer-run steelhead. It con- 

 tains old growth forest habitat that is critical to increasingly rare forest carnivores, such as Pacific fisher and 

 marten. In addition, Dillon Creek is a forest habitat linkage between the Siskiyou and Marble Mountain 

 Wilderness Areas. 



The Forest Service plans to log as much as 26 million board feet of timber from this drainage including many 

 trees that are green and healthy and trees located in Riparian and Late Successional Reserves. Logging is also 

 planned in the Dillon Roadless Area. 



TTie Dillon Timber Sale is being promoted as an emergency measure to avert a "forest health" crisis looming 

 hom the threat of catastrophic fire. However, data in the Dillon LSR Assessment (LSRA) do not confirm a 

 forest health crisis because there is no pattern of catastrophic fire in the Dillon area. Historic data on fire pat- 

 terns in the LSRA, shows only 7-8 percent of the LSR burned at high intensity and only 4 percent at mod- 

 erate intensity. The other 88 percent burned at low intensity or not at all. These observations do not suggest 

 a forest health emergency. Instead, they show fire functioning as a natural and essential pan of a healthy for- 

 est ecosystem at Dillon Creek. 



In fact, data fi-om Dillon Creek suggest that there is a strong correlation between areas that were once clearcut, 

 and areas that experienced high intensity fire. The evidence suggests that logging increases the intensity of fire 

 in an area that otherwise is quite resistant to high or moderate intensity fire. TTiis is because debris left after 

 logging provides fuels and contributes to the intensity of fire. The Dillon sale will probably not generate 

 enough revenue to pay for the clean up of logging debris. 



For additional information: 



Felice Pace, Klamath Forest Alliance 916/467 5405 



Ryan Henson, California Wilderness Coalition 916/758 0380 



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