College of Forestry undergraduate Carson Sawyer hiked between research sites in Oregon State University’s McDonald-Dunn Research Forest as part of a Mentored Employment Program project in the McDonald-Dunn Research Forest. He investigated whether researchers can collect reliable watershed data from easy-to-access forest sites or whether monitoring must take place on steeper, more remote terrain.

Across Oregon State University, researchers, Extension specialists, students and partners are studying fire as part of a connected system — one that includes forests and fuels, homes and neighborhoods, human decisions and emergency response, and the recovery that begins after a fire. That statewide, interdisciplinary approach is expanding both the questions wildfire researchers ask and what can be done with the answers. How have fire and people shaped forests over centuries? Where can treatments make the greatest difference? Why do some structures and communities survive while others don't? And how can Oregon prepare for the fires still to come?

Tree rings preserved in old Douglas-firs document a history of Indigenous fire stewardship in the McDonald-Dunn Forest — and how colonization transformed the landscape. While earning his master’s degree from the College of Forestry, Charles Drake (‘26) followed clues scattered across the McDonald-Dunn to better document the past. Those clues are etched into tree rings of old Douglas-firs, where fire scars preserve a record of burning. The work is part of the McDonald-Dunn Fire History Project, which Drake now co-leads as a faculty research associate.

When Extension Forester and Assistant Professor of Practice Lorelle Sherman surveyed purple martins in the McDonald-Dunn Research Forest as part of her master’s research 10 years ago, she never imagined the project would one day connect three generations of Oregon State researchers and help shape a new approach to biodiversity monitoring. Fast-forward, and that’s exactly what’s happened. While pursuing her undergraduate degree in natural resources, Makena Westermeyer (‘26) revisited the same purple martin nesting sites Sherman studied a decade ago.

On any given day, the McDonald-Dunn Research Forest may host a mountain biker, a graduate student collecting data, a forest operations intern and a family out for an afternoon walk — sometimes on the same trail system. For many in the Corvallis community, the forest is a favorite destination for exercise, exploration and connection to the outdoors. With more than 200,000 visits annually, the McDonald-Dunn is one of the most heavily used outdoor recreation destinations in the region. But that is only one part of the forest’s story. The McDonald-Dunn serves simultaneously as a living laboratory, an outdoor classroom, a working forest and a recreation destination. Visitors can experience forestry in action while researchers, students and forest managers continue the work of teaching, discovery and stewardship. That overlap is part of what makes the forest unique. It also creates one of its biggest management challenges: How do you intentionally manage visitor use in a forest that was never intended solely for recreation?

The OSU Research Forest team recently welcomed Emily Steel, ecologist with the City of Eugene's Public Works Department, for a tour of Oregon white oak restoration sites in the McDonald-Dunn Research Forest.