In 2005, a fire burned approximately 28,000 acres within the Utamilla National Forest. The Forest Service proposed a timber salvage to recover some of the value of the dead and dying trees killed by the fire and subsequently permitted commercial harvesting of dead and dying trees in a part of the National Forest. It decided that live fire-injured trees would be harvested if they were were living but predicted to die within one year.
The plaintiffs challenged this decision. The Ninth Circuit held that the Forest Service’s plan violated the Eastside Screens. The Eastside Screens had been developed by the Forest Service and were intended to protect old-growth forest. They prohibited logging “live trees” greater than 21-inches in diameter at breast height. The court was of the view that the common understanding of the term “live” was, quite simply, “not dead”. Thus even trees that were expected to die within a year, but that were not dead, were still “live”. It ordered that no live tree of the requisite size with green needles should be harvested.