CAL FIRE Provides $10 Million in Grant Funding for Wildland Fuel Reduction in Northern Mendocino County, Humboldt, and Butte County

The Bureau of Land Management and its partners received more than $10 million in grant funding from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE). The grant funds will be used for wildland fuels reduction projects that will reduce hazardous vegetation on northern California public and private lands in Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity and Butte counties.

“These funds will go a long way enabling us to complete projects that will reduce risk of catastrophic wildfire and improve landscape health and fire resilience,” said Dereck Wilson, manager of the BLM’s Northern California District.  “With these grants we are continuing ongoing projects and look forward to starting new work that will benefit our natural resources and northern California communities.  We are grateful for our funding partners in CAL FIRE and our local partners who will help complete this important work.”

Funding will be used in four project areas.

• In the King Range Forest Health and Community Protection Project, the BLM received more than $4.3 million for fuels reduction work on about 1,200 acres on BLM-managed public lands in the King Range National Conservation Area in southern Humboldt County.  Work will reduce the density of evergreen and hardwood forest areas, improving health of the forest and providing improved wildfire resilience for King Range communities and electrical transmission infrastructure.  The projects will include use of hand crews, heavy equipment, and prescribed burning.  Some work is already underway along Prosper Ridge Road.
   
• In the Northern Mendocino County Forest Health Collaborative, the BLM Arcata Field Office partnered with the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, which led the effort to secure about $4.9 million for work on about 1,350 acres of lands managed by the Redwood Forests Foundation INC., and public lands managed by the BLM.  About 1,000 acres of this project are public lands within the BLM-managed Red Mountain Management Area in northern Mendocino County.  The work will include forest thinning and reduction of brush.  Chipping and pile burning will be included in the project work.
   
• The BLM Redding Field Office will complete thinning and prescribed burning on more than 580 public land acres in Trinity County, thanks to $761,000 received as part of a joint forest health grant.  The BLM partnered with the Trinity County Resource Conservation District, which led the grant application process, and the Shasta Trinity National Forest and Trinity Watershed Research Center.
   
• The Redding Field Office also joined multiple partners in applying for grants in Butte County and received about $456,000 for fuels reduction and fire resilience treatments on more than 480 acres. The Butte County Fire Safe Council leads a partnership, including the Plumas National Forest, Butte County Resource Conservation District, Sierra Pacific Industries and other private landowners.

The grants were provided through CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program, established to work with partners to improve forest health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in forests through the state.  The program’s objective is to conserve forests and improve forest health by increasing fuels reduction, reintroducing prescribed fire and treating degraded areas.  The program aims to conserve threatened forests using landscape-level projects developed and led by regionally based efforts.