Hidden pressure is pushing Douglas-fir harvests decades earlier

A new study of Douglas-fir forests in western Oregon shows that when wildfire risk runs high, the most profitable time to harvest trees falls from roughly 65 years to just 24.

The same work shows land values can fall by roughly half when fire probability is severe and persistent over a stand’s life.

What the new analysis measured

The work was led by Hsu Y. Kyaw, a doctoral researcher at Oregon State University (OSU). His research focuses on forest economics under wildfire and market risk.

The model centers on the reservation price, the minimum timber price that triggers a harvest decision. It lets managers wait when prices are low and cut when prices clear that threshold, which is a practical way to handle uncertainty.

Price swings matter, so the team treated timber markets as stochastic prices, prices that bounce unpredictably around a long run average.

That choice captures good years, bad years, and the temptation to wait for a better price, all while fire risk ticks upward as trees age.

Why wildfire risk changes the math

“Results indicate that wildfire risk reduces reservation prices by up to 15 %,” wrote Kyaw. Fire risk also drags down land expectation value, the net present value of a forested acre across endless future rotations.

In the high-risk case studied, average land value drops by about half, to roughly 2,600 dollars per acre, which makes early harvests look safer than waiting for premium logs.

Risk is not flat with age, so age dependent risk, a hazard that rises year by year as fuels and exposure build, matters for timing. In these conditions, waiting into the 60 to 90-year window becomes a gamble that many owners will not take.

The carbon price puzzle

Carbon payments can lengthen rotations by paying forests to store more carbon, a physical process called carbon sequestration, the long term storage of atmospheric carbon in wood.

In the scenario without fire, higher carbon prices keep trees growing longer, but this benefit fades as the chance of a stand-replacing fire climbs.

For context, California’s cap and trade auctions cleared in the mid 30s to low 40s per ton in 2024, including a February settlement price of 41.76 dollars per ton. Those prices are in the ballpark of the 35 dollars per ton case explored by the Oregon team.

The take home for policy is simple, and a bit sobering. Carbon rewards help, but without lowering fire exposure, the math still tilts toward earlier cutting when the odds of a big burn get too high.

What this means for Oregon and beyond

Nearly half of Oregon is forestland, which means fire and markets shape a large swath of the state’s working lands, according to a recent OFRI report.

A shift from long rotations toward shorter cycles changes wood quality, carbon stored on the stump, and the mix of logs arriving at mills.

Fuel work can slow that shift. A large randomized experiment showed that thinning followed by a prescribed burn, a planned, low intensity fire set by experts, cut wildfire severity for two decades and kept tree mortality lower than in untreated stands.

This kind of treatment buys time that can keep rotations closer to what mills and carbon programs prefer.

Wood that can be salvaged

After a fire, speed matters. Salvage logging, postfire harvest of damaged but usable timber, can recover value before decay wipes it out, an effect documented in a Forest Service analysis.

When more wood can be salvaged quickly, the financial hit shrinks and land values hold up better.

The Oregon team also points to strategy at the landscape scale. Adaptive zoning, flexible harvest and treatment zones that shift with conditions, allows owners to put shorter rotations where risk is hot and keep longer rotations in cooler corners of the map.

That mix reduces exposure without flattening the log supply or the local economy.

Adaptive management strategies

Two practical messages surface from the numbers. First, when fire risk rises with stand age, the harvest trigger falls, and waiting turns from prudent to perilous much sooner than many expect.

Second, the path back to longer rotations runs through risk reduction, not just higher carbon prices or hopes for better markets.

Fuel treatments, faster salvage, smarter insurance, and coordinated planning all raise the odds that owners can keep trees on the stump long enough to capture more value.

“These findings underscore the need for adaptive management strategies that integrate wildfire risk and market uncertainty,” wrote Kyaw. 

The study’s framework makes room for both, and it shows where public policy can actually change the outcome rather than just reshuffle who carries the risk.

The study is published in Forest Policy and Economics.

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