Crescent Mills Sawmill Ribbon Cutting:

On May 18, Sierra Institute Director Jonathan Kusel joined with CNRA Secretary Wade Crowfoot, Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) Executive Officer Angela Avery, and well over a hundred local leaders and participants to celebrate the opening of the new Crescent Mills sawmill in Plumas County. Funded by a $360,000 SNC grant, the mill and larger wood utilization campus will help rebuild the community of Greenville and others nearly destroyed by the Dixie Fire in 2021. The sawmill was featured in this NBC News Live feature on rebuilding Greenville and the related efforts by the USFS and Placerville Nursery to reforest after wildfire.

Grant Awards

· CAL FIRE awarded $118 million in funding for 144 Wildfire Prevention projects across the state. CAL FIRE’s Wildfire Prevention Grants enable local organizations like fire safe councils, to implement activities that address the hazards of wildfire and reduce wildfire risk to communities. Funded activities include hazardous fuel reduction, wildfire prevention planning, and wildfire prevention education.

· CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program awarded 22 grants totaling $98.4 million for landscape-scale forest health and prescribed fire projects spanning over 55,000 acres and 14 counties. CAL FIRE also awarded $10 million to the North Coast Resource Partnership (NCRP) for its regional wildfire resilience plan, which was developed with support from the Department of Conservation’s Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program.

· CAL FIRE’s Wood Products and Bioenergy Team awarded 30 grants totaling $33 million for business and workforce development projects. Ten workforce grants will help train over 5,000 individuals in prescribed fire, fuels treatment, firefighting, and forestry, and another14 grants will create 120 jobs and utilize 750,000 tons of forest biomass that would otherwise remain in the woods or be burned in open piles. Two projects will expand the State’s native tree seed bank and grow seedlings to assist with reforestation, and six research and development grants will fund novel uses for forest biomass sourced from wildfire mitigation projects.

· CAL FIRE’s Wildfire Resilience Program awarded $9.99 million in block grants to the American Forest Foundation (AFF), Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation, and the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts (CARCD). The grants will support forest improvement projects on approximately 6,000 acres of small non-industrial private forestlands and provide technical assistance to private landowners in13 counties.

RFFC Grant Guidelines:

The Department of Conservation (DOC) released the 2022 Regional Forest and Fire Capacity (RFFC) Program Draft Grant Guidelines to help build the capacity of forest collaboratives and regional partnerships to develop priority plans to improve the health and resilience of landscapes and communities. DOC will be accepting comments until June 23 and plans to issue the final guidelines on June 30.

CARB Scoping Plan Update:

On May 10, CARB released a Draft 2022 Climate Change Scoping Plan that assesses progress toward the statutory 2030 target, while laying out a path to achieving carbon neutrality no later than 2045. CARB has scheduled a public hearing on the plan on June 23 and is accepting public comments until June 24.

CAL FIRE Creates New Division to Support Local Communities Preparing for Wildfire:

CAL FIRE has established a new Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation Division, which will spearhead programs to help communities adapt to wildfire risks and reduce public safety threats and damage caused by wildfires. This is part of California’s intensified wildfire resilience efforts, including investing more than $1 billion in community protection projects this year.

CAL FIRE at a Glance:

CAL FIRE has updated its ”At a Glance” fact sheet of current resources (personnel, equipment, facilities) and capacity.

Pause of Prescribed Fire on USFS Lands:

On May 20, 2022, Chief Randy Moore announced a pause of prescribed fire operations on National Forest System Lands.

USFS Disaster Recovery Funds:

Under the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act (Public Law 117–43), funds were allocated for restoration of resources and infrastructure on National Forest System lands in California. In addition, approximately $19 million was allocated for State and Private Forestry (S&PF) to largely support recovery of non-industrial private forest land owners, including:

• Pilot Emergency Fire Restoration Teams (EFRT) to address Caldor, Dixie and Tamarack fires: $9,315,000

• Post-fire stewardship workshops for landowners and to develop lessons learned and best practices for the EFRTs: $2,000,000 to UCANR

• RCD programs for disaster recovery & establishment of EFRTs: $3,000,000 to CARCD

• Post-fire My Sierra Woods program: $1,000,000 to AFF

• Reforestation Pipeline Cooperative & Cone Corps to assist in cone surveys and collection as a next step from the WFR Task Force Reforestation Strategy: $1,235,000 to American Forests

• Seedlings for NIPFLO: $500,000 to CAL FIRE’s LA Moran Reforestation

• Tribal recovery and tribal nursery support: $1,700,000

• Giant Sequoia inventory and protection: $250,000

USFS Wildfire Crisis Strategy:

As part of the Forest Service’s strategy for Confronting the Wildfire Crisis, the Stanislaus and Tahoe national forests will receive targeted investments to increase forest resiliency and health through a broad range of treatments. These two forests will collectively receive $28.6 million in 2022 and an additional $52.1 million over the next three years, for a total of $80.7 million. This funding is being appropriated through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
The North Yuba Landscape Resilience area on the Tahoe National Forest and the SERAL (Social and Ecological Resilience Across the Landscape) area on the Stanislaus National Forest are two of 10 landscapes selected nationally to receive this funding. Overall, the 10 landscapes will receive $131 million this year to begin implementing our 10-year strategy for protecting communities and improving resilience in America’s forests.

Wood Innovation Grants 

On May 27, 2022, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced more than $32 million nationwide to fund 2022 Wood Innovation and Community Wood grants. Of that total, 17 innovations grants, totaling, $3,290,798 went to California-based projects to stimulate and expand wood products and wood energy markets and 5 community wood grants, totaling $4,353,077, to install thermally led community wood energy systems or to build innovative wood product manufacturing facilities.

Department of Interior (DOI) Five-Year Plan:

In April, DOI released a five-year Wildfire Risk Monitoring, Maintenance, and Treatment Plan to address wildfire risk. DOI’s Five-Year Plan complements USDA’s 10-Year Strategy in emphasizing fire-prone DOI and Tribal lands comprising up to 30 million additional acres.

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Plan:  

BLM will host meetings June to discuss the development of the Northwest California Integrated Resource Management Plan which will guide the agency’s management of lands overseen by the Arcata and Redding field offices for the next 20 years.

Big Basin State Park Reimagined:

Two years after Big Basin State Park, California’s first established State Park located in the Santa Cruz Mountains, was decimated by wildfire, California’s Department of Parks and Recreation (State Parks) announced that the park will reopen to limited visitation later this summer, with more details to come next month. Until then, State Parks is s engaging stakeholders and the public to reimagine the future of Big Basin.

Western Klamath Restoration Partnership:

Much of the land that makes up the Klamath and Six Rivers national forests is the current and ancestral home to the Karuk Tribe. There is a pilot project under way to use fire to reshape damaged ecosystems. The tribe is part of the stakeholder group Western Klamath Restoration Partnership that has put together a detailed restoration plan using GIS to analyze and prioritize the restoration projects.

Treatment Tracking Highlights:

The Task Force’s Monitoring, Reporting, and Assessment Work Group has completed Version 1.0 of the framework for the Forest & Wildland Stewardship Interagency Tracking System for all federal, state, local and tribal projects statewide. The Work Group will soon be contacting state and federal land agencies to begin data collection. The Task Force will provide an update of the system at the July meeting.

May 31, 2022: Greenville was destroyed by wildfire. Can it be rebuilt to survive the next one?

May 24, 2022: Wildfire restoration efforts bring back native plants, wildlife

May 11, 2022: CapRadio Insight with Vicki Gonzalez (minute 9:45) – Director Patrick Wright; Craig Thomas, founder of The Fire Restoration Group; and attorney and partner Sara Clark at Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, discuss California’s Strategic Plan for Expanding the Use of Beneficial Fire.

April 30, 2022:  California’s giant sequoias are being destroyed by our wildfires. Scientists are resorting to extraordinary methods to save them

AB 1717 (Aguiar-Curry) Public works: definition. Expands the definition of public works to include fuels reduction work as part of wildfire mitigation projects and thus require the payment of prevailing wage for such projects.

AB 2251 (Calderon) Urban forestry: statewide strategic plan: statewide map. Requires CAL FIRE to develop a statewide strategic plan by 2025 to increase tree canopy coverage in urban areas by 10 percent by 2035.

AB 2649 (Garcia and Stone) Natural Carbon Sequestration and Resilience Act of 2022. Requires CNRA, on or before July 1, 2023, in coordination with its departments, including CARB and CDFA, to refine existing and establish new natural carbon sequestration pathways and strategies where appropriate.

AB 2878 (Aguiar-Curry) Forest Biomass Waste Utilization Program. Establishes the Forest Waste Biomass Utilization Program at the Joint Institute for Wood Products Innovation to develop an implementation plan to meet the goals of specified statewide forest management plans.

SB 926 (Dodd) Prescribed Fire Liability Pilot Program: Prescribed Fire Claims Fund. Requires CAL FIRE to establish the Prescribed Fire Liability Pilot Program, pursuant to SB 170 (Skinner), and to consult with the Department of General Services in establishing a Prescribed Fire Claims Fund.

Knight et al., 2022: Land management explains major trends in forest structure and composition over the last millennium in California’s Klamath Mountains (fs.fed.us)

Liu et al., 2022: Inter-Basin Transfers Extend the Benefits of Water from Forests to Population Centers Across the Conterminous U.S.

Maxwell et al., 2022: Frequency of disturbance mitigates high-severity fire in the Lake Tahoe Basin, California and Nevada (fs.fed.us)

Stephens et al., 2022: Mass fire behavior created by extensive tree mortality and high tree density not predicted by operational fire behavior models in the southern Sierra Nevada

Wildland-Urban Interface Project:

OPR will soon release an inventory of best practices for planning, zooning, development review and code enforcement in the Wildlife Urban Interface (WUI). The inventory is called for under Key Action 2.5 of the Task Force’s Action Plan and will inform local governments on how best to develop and implement plans, codes, standards and enforcement activities within the WUI.

July Task Force Meeting:

The next meeting will be July 21 in Sacramento and will include an update on the interagency treatment tracking project and progress made to streamline regulatory processes for wildfire and forest resilience efforts.