Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to Provide $103 Million for Wildfire Mitigation and Resilience
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to Provide $103 Million for Wildfire Mitigation and Resilience
President Biden and the Department of the Interior will support firefighters and reduce wildfire risk across the nation.
Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, announced the allocation of $103 million in fiscal year 2022 for wildfire risk reduction efforts throughout the country from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the establishment of an interagency wildland firefighter health and wellbeing program.
RESOURCES
US Department of the Interior: Five Year Monitoring, Maintenance and Treatment Plan
Recent CAL FIRE Grants Total Over $250M For Wildfire and Forest Resilience
Recent CAL FIRE Grants Total Over $250M For Wildfire and Forest Resilience
Funded projects address threatened communities, forest health, prescribed fire, restoring burned landscapes and more.
June 2, 2022 – CAL FIRE Grant Programs have allocated funds to address crucial needs in a wide range of areas related to wildfire and forest resilience. Together, they represent significant progress towards achieving the goals of California’s Wildfire & Forest Resilience Action Plan.
$118 million in funding was awarded 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. They 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.
30 grants totaling $33 million came from CAL FIRE’s Wood Products and Bioenergy Team 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.
SNC Approves More Than $21 Million In Wildfire Recovery and Forest Resilience Grants
SNC Approves More Than $21 Million In Wildfire Recovery and Forest Resilience Grants
The Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) granted $21.8 million to 19 forest resilience and wildfire recovery projects at its recent June board meeting. Thirteen of the projects will take place on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands, where federal land management agencies committed an additional $4.8 million to the forest resilience and wildfire recovery efforts. It’s important to note that many of these grants also build on collaborative planning and implementation efforts by state, federal, and local organizations that have been ongoing for years throughout the region.
Find more highlights about individual projects in an article on the SNC’s website, and more detail in SNC board materials starting on page 69 of the linked pdf.
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Meet the Scientists Working To Save Fire-Ravaged Giant Sequoias
Meet the Scientists Working to Save Fire Ravaged Giant Sequoias
April 30, 2022 – A collection of scientist, foresters and land managers is trying to rebuild the ancient sequoia stands lost in California’s historic wildfires and ensure survival of the hallowed giants. The San Francisco Chronicle profiled them in a fascinating column.
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CAL FIRE Reforestation
Services Program
National Park Service
Giant Reforestation
Overview
How is California Saving its Forests?
Can California Forests Be Saved?
April 20, 2022 – KQED, the public TV station in Northern California, produced this excellent video called, appropriately enough, Reforestation. The 9:00 minute long video explains the scientific process that geneticists are using to replant our state’s burnt forests. You’ll see the climbers who collect conifer cones in dizzying footage that shows the lofty efforts that are being made to rejuvenate California’s forests by authorities like CAL FIRE and U.S. Forest Service.
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U.S. Forest Service Identifies California Landscapes at High Wildfire Risk
U.S. Forest Service Identifies California Landscapes at High Wildfire Risk
April 20, 2022 – As part of the Forest Service’s strategy for Confronting the Wildfire Crisis, two landscapes within 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.
Prescribed Burns Helped Curb the Caldor Fire
Prescribed Burns Helped Curb the Caldor Fire
September 20, 2021 – The Caldor Fire defied expectations, climbing up mountains and crossing highways, destroying more than 1,000 structures in the process. South Lake Tahoe narrowly avoided the fire’s wrath, which fire experts say was largely thanks to fire prevention activities, including prescribed burns. The following maps show how prescribed burns and other methods of removing vegetation to reduce the risk of hotter, larger fires — known as “fuel treatments” — slowed or curbed Caldor’s growth.
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Meet the People Burning California to Save It
Meet the People Burning California to Save It
July 29, 2021 – Frequent, low-intensity fires known as prescribed burns are one of the best ways to stop wildfires. So why isn’t California lighting more of them?
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CAL FIRE Reforestation Center in Davis Helps Wildfire-Prone Areas Recover
CAL FIRE Reforestation Center in Davis helps wildfire-prone areas recover
L.A. Moran Reforestation Center has spent 100 years sowing seeds
May 29, 2021 – What happens after California’s massive wildfires are extinguished?
Rebuilding, in many ways, begins.
For the past 100 years, Cal Fire has been doing its part by assisting in reforestation efforts across the state.
The hub for these efforts is located on a 60-acre site along Chiles Road in Davis. The L.A. Moran Reforestation Center was established in 1921 to embrace Cal Fire’s ongoing mission to protect the people and resources of California, according to the Cal Fire website. The Reforestation Center has produced millions of tree seedlings for the state’s reforestation efforts.