Dozens of homeless people who lived in central Oregon national forests for years were kicked out by the U.S. Forest Service on Thursday. This closed the area of the wildfire prevention project, which included removing small wood, cleaning up debris and setting up controlled burns across thousands of acres.
The project has been featured in the book for many years, and the decision to remove the Deschute National Forest camp comes two months after the Trump administration issued an executive order directing federal agencies to increase timber production and forest management projects aimed at reducing the risk of wildfires.
Kaitlyn Webb, a spokesman for Deschutes National Forest, said in an email that the closure order was “in direct link to forest restoration work.” Meanwhile, advocates for the homeless were seized Thursday after U.S. Forest Service officials blocked access roads.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they do this with this vitality right after they announced that the forest would be open for cutting,” said Jesse Rabinowitz, a spokesman for the National Center for Homelessness Law.
The US Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and the Pacific Northwest region of the Service, did not immediately respond to email requests for comment.
“Closures do not target specific user groups and restrict all access, including daily use and camping overnight, but crews operate heavy equipment, perform prescribed burns and clean up hazardous materials,” Webb said. “It is not safe for the public to be in the area while heavy machinery is operating, trees are cut down, mowing operations are active and burning is prescribed.”
A camper van with trailers, recreational vehicles and tents in the forest scrambled in the dark on Wednesday night and scrambled in the dark to get the engines to work again. Authorities closed the two-lane road early on Thursday morning, but it was not immediately clear how many people were still in the woods by the afternoon, but some were unable to leave.
The U.S. Forest Service has been working for many years to plan to close parts of the Deschute National Forest near Bend to restore the forest and alleviate wildfires. However, the number of people living in that part of the forest is increasing, with many people losing their homes during the coronavirus pandemic due to unemployment and high housing costs, Rabinowitz said.
Efforts to alleviate wildfires
President Trump’s administration has acted to roll back environmental protections, focusing on future logging projects in more than half of US national forests, under an emergency designation cited dangers from wildfires.
It remains to be seen whether the administration’s move will boost the supply of wood, as was envisaged in the executive order that Trump signed in March. Former President Biden’s administration also called for more logging in public forests to combat the fire. The fires have become more intense in drier climate-related environments, but U.S. Forest Service timber sales have been relatively flat during his tenure.
The Cabin Butte Vegetation Management Project, which is roughly 30,000 acres of wildfire mitigation treatment, is urging the closure of Deschute National Forest.
The goal of the work is to reduce the risk of wildfires and restore damaged habitats that allow development to invade natural areas near Bend, Deschutes National Forest officials said in a statement. The area’s recreational sites and trails will be closed until April next year.
Several U.S. Forest Service officials and vehicles were stationed at the closure of Deschutes National Forest Road on Thursday. A metal gate sign blocking the road said temporary emergency closures would last at least a year.
Violators could face a fine of up to six months in prison, up to $5,000, or both.
Judge refuses to block closure
On Wednesday night, Mandy Bryant, who said she had lived in the camp for about three years, was about to clean up her site and start a trailer so she could get it to work.
“I was able to feel only the weight of the air and the stress and depression people are feeling,” she told The Associated Press. “We’re on the list of groups of people that society really doesn’t care.”
Four people living in the camp, including Bryant, have, together with two homeless advocates, applied for a restraining order to stop the closure. The claims claimed it caused irreparable harm to the more than 100 people who lived there. Many of them have disabilities.
The government responded in a court application in January that U.S. Forest Service staff had begun notifying homeless people living in areas where future closures were to be closed. The original plan for the project was published in 2019 and approved by the U.S. Forest Service in 2023, court filings said.
US District Judge Michael McShane refused the restraining order on Tuesday and released his written opinion on Thursday.
“The great public’s interest in restoring natural habitat, preventing devastating wildfires and maintaining the overall health of the Deschute National Forest is not mindful of the interests of the 150 or so individuals who live in this particular land,” he writes to the Dominion.
Webb, a spokesman for Deschutes National Forest, told Oregon/Oregon Live that the government’s goal is “voluntary compliance,” but Forest Service officials and staff will “enforce the closure and ensure public safety.”
Kane and Rush write for the Associated Press. The rush was reported from Portland, Oregon.
