PORTLAND — Oregon is hiring a Pacific Northwest-based arborist to review the state’s removal of trees in wildfire burn areas after recent concerns that the operation has been hasty and excessive.
The Oregon Office of Emergency Management announced Monday that Galen Wright has been hired as an independent contractor to review the hazard tree effort, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
Wright is president of Washington Forest Consultants, Inc. He is tasked with providing a full assessment of Oregon’s program and his recommendations are due in June.
“As this adaptive and evolving emergency response operation continues to make significant progress, Oregonians deserve to have confidence in the good work underway,” said Mac Lynde the Oregon Department of Transportation’s head of the three-agency Debris Management Task Force. It has been coordinating the tree-removal program in the aftermath of the 2020 wildfires that burned over 1 million acres.