Windstorm's wrath forces emergency harvest

NASELLE, Pacific County —

There is never a good time for 125-mile-an-hour winds to hopscotch across your tree farm and blow down millions of dollars' worth of timber that's taken decades to grow.

December was certainly one of the worst times — right in the middle of a home-building bust that has idled many sawmills and sent some logging prices skidding to some of the lowest points of the past quarter-century.

"We'll only get one chance in our lifetime to harvest this ground," said Arne Wirkkala, whose family has about 1,000 acres of forest damaged by the hurricane-force gusts of December's storm. "We were looking to put our kids and grandkids through college, and this isn't the market we would have picked."

Wirkkala is one of dozens of landowners launching a big — and at times dangerous — salvage harvest in Southwest Washington.

They are caught in a financial trap. There is a big rush to harvest this wood, before it discolors and loses even more value. But in the months ahead, the salvaged logs risk flooding regional markets, further depressing prices.

Much of the timber lies in a weird patchwork that spreads across some 19,000 acres of Southwest Washington. Within these lands, the wind spared some stands and pummeled others just a few hundred yards away. Some trees are splayed on the ground, root wads wrested from the soil. Others are bent like taut bows. Still more remain upright but with tops that look like they were lopped off by giant garden shears.

This was the worst wind damage since the notorious Columbus Day storm of 1962, which knocked down timber as far inland as Oregon's Willamette Valley and claimed at least 46 lives. The December storm blew over several days, wreaking most of the damage within a narrow band that lies within 20 miles of the coast.

In this zone, state officials estimate 600 million to 800 million board feet of public and private timber — enough wood to build more than 20,000 homes — was damaged.

The bulk of the damage is on state lands and corporate holdings owned by Weyerhaeuser and other large forest companies. The storm also struck many of the hundreds of family-owned tree farms, whose tracts range from a few backyard acres to more than 1,000 acres.

Safety concerns

Most of the salvage harvest will be mechanized. Rather than tramping through the woods, loggers will sit inside a cab, operating automated saws that bite through fir, spruce, hemlock and alder trees and pare them into lengths. Their windshields are made of bulletproof glass to protect them against falling limbs.

But some trees are so big, or growing on such steep ground, that they must be logged the old-fashioned way — with chain saws.

During a long afternoon of work, logger Ron Smith climbed up to 25 feet off the ground to cut hung-up trees. Other times, he felled trees that the wind already had partially uprooted. These leaners were unpredictable, and he was never sure whether they would go down quietly or shatter at the base.

Just before these trees fall, Smith sprints in the opposite direction.

"This is the Nightmare on Elm Street," he said. "Many of the trees are under terrible tension. So when you saw them, they want to split up in the air. ... I've been logging 30 years, and this is the worst I've ever seen it."

Washington state Department of Labor and Industries officials also are on alert. In the aftermath of the 1962 storm, harvesting blown-down timber contributed to a big surge in logging deaths, which shot up from 48 fatal accidents in 1962 to 68 the next year.

Today, with mechanization and fewer loggers in the woods, the annual Washington state death toll typically ranges from three to six. But state officials are wary of increased accidents as loggers work more treacherous ground. They note the January death of an Oregon logger who was pinned against a tree while cutting a wind-damaged stand.

"We don't want another spike in deaths," said Elaine Fischer, a spokeswoman for the Department of Labor and Industries.

Bad economic timing

In many areas, the salvage logging only recently got under way. It's a more expensive operation than traditional harvests, and may unfold in stands that owners — before the storm — had no intention of harvesting this year.

Just east of Raymond in Pacific County, Greg Pattillo takes a visitor to the remains of a young stand of 25-year-old timber.

Pattillo spent many weekends thinning the trees to promote more rapid growth. Another 15 years, and the eight-acre tract would have been prime for harvest. Instead, the bruised remains of this stand were gathered up this month and hauled off to the mills.

Pattillo heads the Pacific County chapter of the Farm Forestry Association, a group whose members include a lot of middle-aged and retired landowners. Many of them are disheartened by the storm damage. It's been difficult to attract a lot of young families into tree farming, and Pattillo fears more of the landowners will sell out to developers.

"I will replant. I have to," Pattillo said. "I'm 60 years old and won't be around to harvest it. But you can't think that way."

At the Wirkkalas', the salvage harvest is expected to begin this week.

Their tree farm was pieced together by Arne's father, Martin Wirkkala, a logger and quarry operator who passed land on in trusts now managed by Arnie and four siblings.

In an era when most mills have retooled to handle skinny young logs some 35 to 40 years old, their tree farm is a throwback. The family lets the trees grow 60 to 75 years, offering more shelter for the elk they love to hunt.

"For my dad, if a tree wasn't 3 feet around, it wasn't time to cut," Wirkkala said. "I'm just stunned by some of the trees that the mills say are ready to go. To me, that's not the way it should be."

During the December storm, the winds trashed more than a third of the salable timber, including some carefully groomed older stands.

In a decent market, these stands could return more than $20,000 per acre. In today's markets, many of the logs are worth more as pulp than lumber, and Wirkkala expects the return will decline by about 80 percent. If export markets are flooded, then the salvage could barely break even.

"We have 2.5 to 3 million board feet of timber lying on the ground," he said. "And we'll be fortunate if we find a market for most of it."

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com