Previous management history makes an acute difference in the resiliency of forests to wildfire. Active management, including prescribed fire and group selection silviculture, significantly altered the behavior of the Mosquito Fire at UC Berkeley’s Blodgett Forest.

The Sequoia National Forest made tremendous progress toward achieving the Giant Sequoia Emergency Response goals. To date, 345 monarch Giant Sequoias have been protected in 6 groves covering 43 acres, and that number is growing daily!

Fuels reduction treatments are being completed in three phases, starting with hazard tree abatement to facilitate safe access for crews working in the groves, then hand treatments to remove ladder fuels and duff from around monarch Giant Sequoias. Implementation is underway in six of the 12 groves: Bearskin, Black Mountain, Indian Basin, Landslide, Wishon, and the Sierra National Forest Nelder grove. 

Forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction projects are complex, involving many steps and moving parts that determine whether a project will succeed and how long it will take. This infographic takes a peek under the hood of forest restoration projects to lay out each of the steps necessary to get a project on the ground and through completion.

Jennifer Eberlein, Pacific Southwest Regional Supervisor, and others spoke at the 26th annual Lake Tahoe Summit to reflect on the progress made to restore the Tahoe Basin over the last two decades, discuss current challenges that the surrounding communities face, and find ways to preserve and protect Lake Tahoe in the years to come.