I certainly agree with the homeowners who’ve complained about the Oregon Department of Forestry’s plans to clear-cut, without warning, reportedly old-growth timber, very near their homes. Unfortunately, many of those responsible for “managing” Oregon’s forests still seem to believe that “management” just means cutting it and trucking it to the mill.

On the other hand, if one drives on U.S. Highway 30 or 26 or Oregon Route 18, either to or from the Willamette Valley and the coast, you see that it’s virtually all forest in between. And with climate change upon us — even if we choose, like the present federal government, to deny and ignore it — it is inescapable that the coastal towns and their outlying populations face a clear and present danger of being wiped out by east wind-driven wildfire(s).

We don’t get sustained east winds often, but we do sometimes, and more and more. And we know what they’ve done to California for years, and did on the Hawaiian island of Maui a year or so ago, though that was the tail of a typhoon. We, in fact, already had one, south of us, that seemed unstoppable until the winds changed, a couple of years ago.

I wish we had state forest officials who would strategically plan some north-south oriented, logged firebreaks, through all that forest, to prevent such a catastrophe.

JOSEPH WEBB

Astoria