On a summer morning, Mark Schulze cranes his neck to inspect the canopies of several large trees in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest. Though the trunks are charred black, the branches near the crowns are still green. Across the rest of the steep slope, most of the smaller trees are dead from wildfire.
“These old Doug-firs, they have such thick bark that if it doesn’t get up into the canopy, it’s going to survive in most circumstances,” said Schulze, an assistant professor and senior researcher at Oregon State University.
This experimental forest straddles 1600 acres in the Willamette National Forest about 50 miles east of Eugene, Oregon. Schulze, who serves as the forest’s director, has lived onsite for 18 years. He’s watched the forest change, but never so dramatically as in the summer of 2023…