California Forest Improvement Program for Small Landowners


Department: CAL FIRE


Program Description: Forty percent of forest land in California is privately owned. And small non-industrial forest landowners represent 26 percent of the forest landownership in California. If neglected these patchwork plots of land, ranging from 20 acres to one thousand acres, could exacerbate a wildfire. The California Forest Improvement Program (CFIP) provides small landowners with technical and financial assistance for planning, reforestation, and resource management investments that improve the health and resilience of forestland since its establishment in 1978. This helps create a more contiguous healthy, wildfire-ready forest regardless of land ownership.

Program Impact: In the last two years, this program has:

  • Entered into 108 grant agreements with small, non-industrial private forestland owners.
  • Restored 5,700 acres of forestland.

Resilience in Action: The CFIP program recently adopted an Emergency Forest Management Plan (EFMP), a more streamlined approach to reforesting lands devastated by catastrophic wildfire. This program helped restore small family-owned forestlands after the Creek Fire near shaver lake and the Antelope Fire in Siskiyou County.

Green Brush with Bottoms of Trees
Overstory of fire resilient pine trees with an understory of highly invasive Scotch broom a species very prone to fire.
Forest Floor
A portion of the property post-treatment.
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