Issue date: 4/12/04 Section: News

RENO, Nev. - The Forest Service has been accused of misrepresenting forest conditions by using misleading photographs in a brochure that urges more logging to prevent wildfires in the Sierra N
Nevada.

The pamphlet, created by a public relations firm, explains that fire risks have risen as the Sierra's forests have grown more dense the past century. Six small black-and-white photos spanning 80 years appear beside descriptions of how the ''forests of the past'' had fewer trees and less underbrush, making them less susceptible to fire.

The 1909 photo shows an open, park-like forest with large trees spaced widely apart. More trees and underbrush appear in each successive picture - 1948, 1958, 1968, 1979 - and finally a photograph thick with trees in 1989.

''Today's forests, dense with green, may seem beautiful, but in fact are deadly,'' the pamphlet reads. ''Our old-growth forests are choking with brush, tinder-dry debris and dead trees which make the risk of catastrophic fire high.''

However, the 1909 photo does not depict natural conditions - it was taken just after the forest had been logged.

And the pictured forest is nowhere near the Sierra Nevada. It's in Montana.

''I was looking at the picture and I thought it looked awful familiar,'' said Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project in Cedar Ridge, Calif. ''I started looking around and sure enough, the industry has used it before in Montana. It's from the Bitterroot Valley.''

Then Hanson used a magnifying glass to make another discovery.

''You can see huge slash piles and stumps in the background,'' he said.

''They give the impression this represents natural, pre-settlement
conditions, but the picture was taken after logging had occurred and most of the trees had been removed.''

The same shot taken near Como Lake in the Bitterroot National Forest southwest of Hamilton, Mont., appeared in a 1983 Forest Service research report entitled ''Fire and Vegetative Trends in the Northern Rockies:
Interpretations from 1871-1982 photographs.''

The caption in that report said the photo shows ''cleanup operations on the Lick Creek timber sale.''

The site also appears in another agency research paper in 1995 depicting an old-growth ponderosa pine stand at Lick Creek in 1909 ''immediately before partial cutting.'' That photo shows a forest three to four times more dense than the post-logging photo.

The agency has used the same photos - minus the pre-logging shot - in support of logging in the Pacific Northwest, too.

''I can't believe they are still doing this,'' said Timothy Ingalsbee of the Western Fire Ecology Center in Eugene, Ore. He said the agency used the same sequence of photos in 1998 ''and misrepresented it to make it seem like it came from the forest just above Ashland, Oregon.''

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