The Rager Ranger Station in the Ochoco National Forest will permanently close on Friday.

Forest spokesperson Tory Kurtz says it was a hard decision to make.  "Mainly it's driven because of declining budgets that the Ochoco National Forest is seeing. So we're looking at reorganizing to match these trends. And the Rager Ranger station is expensive, and something that we simply can't continue to maintain."

Kurtz has the station has about $500,000 in deferred maintenance costs that they will be saving by closing the facility.

All of the services and employees will relocate to Prineville where the Paulina Ranger District employees are located.