June 21, 2024
Hello and welcome readers to this summer’s Starker Forests Intern Blog. Returning readers from last year may remember me; my name is Anthony Cafferata. I am going into my senior year at Oregon State University and my second summer as a Starker Forests Intern. This week was the first week for all but one of the interns and it started off great!
I was not present on Monday, but I was ready for Tuesday! We visited several locations around Starker Property and discussed company operations, goals and research. We visited a site where a new road is being constructed and the adjacent unit is being thinned. We all got the opportunity to talk about road building and thinning with the operators and even climb up and look in the forwarder (forest machine to haul cut to length logs out of a unit). At a research plot, studying tree growth of a variety of different species we found a giant sequoia with bear damage! It was interesting to see the teeth marks, shredded bark, and we even found black bear hair.
Wednesday was a day to see the Starker Fire Engines in action. Starker Forests conducted a prescribed burn of a clearcut prior to us starting and we got to see the unit and “mop up” what was left of the fire. This consists of walking the unit and looking for hot spots, and when one is found, you let people know and then get to work. Jace, Daniel, Gus and I (all interns) were directed to a hotspot. We dug it out and spread the embers and coals until we could bring in one of Starkers’ fire engines to put water on it and make sure it was cold. I also found a neat alligator lizard.
Thursday and Friday we were at a clearcut that would soon be two research plots, one for Douglas-fir and one for redwood. The first day we flagged out a grid with pin flags. The flags had 10×10 ft. spacing and laid out in a 200 x 500 ft. grid, resulting in about 1,000 trees. We did not quite finish the first day, so we came back on Friday after compass and pacing tutorial/refresher and added the last of the flags and straightened out our lines by adjusting the flags. That did not take long so we practiced our compass and pacing skills under Lys’s watchful eye. We walked two different courses and with good success.
The first week back at Starker Forests went very well and I look forward to the rest of the summer.