In The News

The New York Times
By Rachel Fazio

Over millions of years, these trees have adapted and evolved to cope with changing conditions. The only action that makes trees disappear is logging, now often referred to as thinning or fuels reduction, which has been ramping up over the past decade. If we stop cutting down our forests — pretending it will stop fires or save trees — nature will continue to show us what she can do. Prepare to be amazed.

Earth Island Journal
By Paul Koberstein

The state’s iconic conifers are regenerating robustly post wildfire, yet a quasi-governmental coalition is pushing to repopulate forests with nursery-raised saplings. In October 2025, veteran Los Angeles Times reporter Doug Smith stepped into the charred sequoia forests of the southern Sierra Nevada expecting to find a tree species in retreat. After the brutal 2020 and 2021 fire seasons, federal scientists had warned that the giant sequoia was teetering toward collapse. Instead, Smith found the opposite.

Earth Island Journal
By Paul Koberstein

The Fix Our Forests Act and the thinning directive from Secretary Rollins are part of a broader effort to dismantle decades of conservation policy and clear the way for the industrialization of America’s forests. Thinning is industrial-scale logging of the forest understory. Feller-bunchers shear off smaller trees along with larger ones that often help fund the operation. Masticators grind brush into a volatile, unmarketable layer of woody debris. That waste is then piled into SUV-sized mounds intended for burning.

Earth Island Journal
By Paul Koberstein

Slash piles left behind from forest-thinning operations may be helping to generate pyrocumulonimbus fire storms, say researchers. Across the Sierra Nevada, these unburned piles have become a permanent fixture of the landscape, left to cure in the sun for years. More often than not, thinning projects here aren’t removing fuels but instead concentrating them. A supposed fuels-reduction project is helping to feed the fires.

Asheville Watchdog
By Jack Evans

The federal government sees a dead tree as a sort of time bomb. In recent decades, and especially under President Donald Trump, land management agencies have seized on dead trees as a type of “fuel” powering destructive wildfires — despite a growing body of scientific research casting doubt on this position.

Los Angeles Times
By Doug Smith

Recalling my experience with Hanson, I suggested we go off-trail up the brushy slope. As we pushed our way through, saplings appeared on all sides, hidden until we came within a few feet.

Inside Climate News
By Katie Surma

The Fix Our Forests Act is a logging bill cynically masquerading as a community wildfire protection measure, and the bitter irony is that the bill would likely exacerbate wildfires and put communities at even greater risk.

Los Angeles Times
By Doug Smith

The McNally fire wiped out whole forests in 2002. What does it tell us today about the future of vast areas devastated by recent fires?

Los Angeles Times
By Doug Smith

“A standing dead tree is vastly more important to wildlife and biodiversity in the forest than a standing live tree of the same size,” he said. “A tree in the forest ecosystem may have two or three hundred years of incredibly important vital life after it dies.”

Random Lengths News
By Paul Rosenberg

[Hanson] cites three reasons it could actually increase the fire threat: by diverting resources, by giving a false sense of security, and by “removing trees and other vegetation” that “reduces wind friction and increases the speed of wildfires,” so that “they reach towns faster,” leaving less time for people to safely evacuate and for first responders to arrive and help.

Daily Montanan
By Jordan Hansen

“We’ll do all these logging operations, we’ll call it thinning and fuel reduction, with a wink and a nod, and it will tell communities it’ll stop the fire from reaching the towns,” Hanson said. “And that is a dangerous lie, because that’s not what’s happening. The fires are blowing right through those thin areas.”

It’s the same logic the Fix Our Forest Act is based on, Hanson said, which is why it’s drawn criticism from some environmental groups like the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and EarthJustice.

TRUTHOUT
By Mike Ludwig

Supporters of rescinding the Roadless Rule argue it creates barriers to active forest management and efforts to prevent wildfires that are intensifying with climate change, such as clearing potential fuel for fire. However, like [Jennifer] Mamola, Huffman says this is misleading.