New Uses for Glut of Small Logs From Thinning of Forests

DARBY, Mont. – Five years ago, intense forest fires around this logging and tourist town burned more than 350,000 acres of forest. Today huge swaths of charred trees cover the mountainsides.

Partly in response to these fires and others on national forest land elsewhere in the West, President Bush introduced the Healthy Forest Initiative in 2002 to reduce the wildfire threat to towns surrounded by publicly owned forests. As work crews thin stands of trees, as called for in the initiative, one result has been a glut of logs smaller than eight inches in diameter.

Until recently, most small trees were collected in piles and burned, but now businesses and the Forest Service have begun looking for uses for the tiny trees.

"It’s high cost, low value and a lot of pieces to handle, which takes time and effort," said Dave Atkins, head of the Forest Service’s Fuels for Schools program for several Western states.

Jim Robbins for The New York Times

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/science/10tree.html