People will once again be able to enter the Santiam State Forest, when sections south of Highway 22 reopen on Friday.
The Oregon Department of Forestry announced that areas of the forest south of Highway 22 that were not severely burned by the Beachie Creek Fire last year will reopen. More than 16,000 acres of the forest were burned in the fire. That took a toll on popular recreation sites, roads and trails.
“Most of the more well-known spots in the Santiam are still closed due to the damage of the 2020 wildfires,” spokesman Jason Cox said. “That includes Shellburg Falls, Rocky Top and Natural Arch and what’s known as the Rhody Lake and High Lake areas. All of those areas are north of Highway 22 and pretty much remain closed.”
Looking northwest on the North Santiam River from the Detroit Dam, in an April 14, 2021, photo that shows areas scarred by last year's wildfires.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
The Santiam House Camp and associated trails are still closed. Stout Creek is limited to non-motorized access and Rock Creek Campground is still closed. No timeline has been set for reopening these and other parts of the forest that remain closed to the public.
Cox said the reopening is a big first step in recovery, but a lot of work remains to rebuild trails and restore the forest.
“One thing about fires, is that it does alter the landscape sometimes and it could’ve been where a trail maybe wasn’t ideally placed in the first place,” he said. “When it sort of wipes a lot of that effort off the landscape it gives you an opportunity sometimes to reimage what an improved trial could look like.”
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So far, the Department of Forestry has cleared and repaired more than 200 miles of roads in the state forest. Cox said most of that work involved replacing culverts.
The department is also working out the financial and logistical next steps required to replant in burned parts of the forest. In a normal year, the Santiam replants about 250,000 seedlings. After the fires, Cox said it will take about 4 million seedlings to fully restore and replant the first.
This week the forestry agency received a grant of nearly $1 million from the nonprofit American Forests to help replant the Santiam State Forest. That will help ODF replant about 2 million seedlings.
“With climate-fueled wildfires ravaging public lands in Oregon and across the West, it is vital that we quickly restore these treasured landscapes with climate-resilient forests, using science to create the right forest composition and structure,” Jad Daley, president and CEO of American Forests, said in a statement.
