30 Dec One of the Largest National Forests in the Country

I’m currently working as a Resource Assistant in Winnfield, Louisiana, a relatively small town home to one of the largest national forests in the U.S.—The Kisatchie National Forest. My worksite consists of an office, where higher up staff can typically be found. You can usually find me in the work center right down from the office building. The work center consists mainly of the timber shop and fire staff.

Our work center, along with our work vehicles.

On the compound, we have several buildings that hold the equipment that we use daily. The building we utilize the most is the paint shed. It contains paint and other tools we use regularly. Once we go out into the field, we primarily work in large pine timber stands. The size of the timber we work in depends on the age of the trees. We thin most of the younger timber out of a certain amount of trees to be able for the others to grow and flourish. However, when we get to the bigger timber, we typically do a clear cut on the entire stand and then come back and replant for future timber products.