The Wasco County Forest Collaborative reports that an early assessment of the Grasshopper Fire shows it impacted at least five of the Collaborative’s project areas, resulting in the loss of old growth forests and commercial timber that had cleared environmental review, but was not harvested prior to the fire.  Collaborative facilitator Andrew Spaeth gave a presentation to Wasco County Commissioners this week.  He said the five projects included 21,996 acres approved for thinning and prescribed burning treatments, but they didn’t get completed for various reasons including litigation and Forest Service capacity and organizational challenges including budget cuts and management by executive order that has hampered forest management for many years.  Five collaborative projects burned: Grasshopper, Rocky, 27 Road Fuel Break, South Pen, and Hootnanny.  Portions of the Rocky, South Pen, and Grasshopper Projects received some type of non-commercial treatment prior to the Grasshopper Fire.  There was an active thinning operation in the Rocky Restoration Project at the time the Grasshopper Fire started.