New Online Treatment Dashboard to Track Wildfire Resilience Projects
New Online Treatment Dashboard to Track Wildfire Resilience Projects
On August 29, the Governor’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force launched the beta version of a first-of-its-kind Interagency Treatment Dashboard beta that displays the size and location of state and federal forest and landscape resilience projects in California.
The dashboard offers a one-stop-shop to access data, provide transparency, and align the efforts of more than a dozen agencies to build resilient landscapes and communities in California. It reports treatment activities such as prescribed fire, targeted grazing, uneven-aged timber harvest, mechanical and hand fuels reduction, and tree planting. Users can sort treatments by region, county, land ownership and more.
The beta version of the dashboard will continue to be refined to include additional data, including projects by local and tribal entities, along with revisions based on public feedback. An official launch is expected in spring 2024 with more complete data on projects implemented in 2022.
June Progress on the Ground
June Progress On The Ground
USFS Concow Resilience Project: Replanting trees is not as simple as it seems. The US Forest Service (USFS) and partners are restoring areas impacted by devastating wildfires in recent years, including the 2018 Camp Fire, and mitigating risks of future catastrophic wildfires with the Concow Resilience Project. The project re-establishes widely spaced oak and pine woodlands to more closely resemble how the land looked prior to European settlement.
USFS Teams up with Shasta College to Provide a Hands-on Learning about Forest Health: Shasta College’s Heavy Equipment Construction and Heavy Equipment Logging students have invested 120 hours this summer in the completion of a fuels reduction project at the Hirz Campground on Shasta Lake with implementation oversight provided by the USFS. Funding for the project was provided by the Shasta Resource Advisory Committee and funding for the Heavy Equipment Logging Operations Program is from California Climate Investments and administered by the CAL FIRE Forest Health Program.
River Pines Community Fuel Break: In the wake of the nearby 2021 Caldor Fire, local residents in Amador County are working with the Amador Fire Safe Council to put CAL FIRE Vegetation Management Program grant money to work to create a fuel break around their community.
The Vegetation Management Program (VMP) is a cost-sharing program that focuses on the use of prescribed fire, and some mechanical means, for addressing wildland fire fuel hazards and other resource management issues on State Responsibility Area (SRA) lands.
Landowners may choose to apply for participation in the Vegetation Management Program. If approved, CAL FIRE assumes the liability for conducting the prescribed burn.
RESOURCES
State Agencies Fund Wildfire Resilience, Habitat Restoration and Conservation Projects
State Agencies Fund Wildfire Resilience, Habitat Restoration and Conservation Projects
State Agencies Fund Wildfire Resilience, Habitat Restoration and Conservation Projects:
State Coastal Conservancy $78 Million for Climate Resilience, Public Access, Habitat Restoration and Wildfire Resilience: On June 1, the State Coastal Conservancy approved nearly $78 million for 34 projects to protect and restore coastal lands, increase coastal resilience to climate change, improve public access to the coast, and reduce the impact of wildfire on coastal lands.
SNC Approves $22.5 Million to Build Resilience, Boost Recreation, and Conserve Land: On June 1, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) approved roughly $22.5 million for 24 different projects that will benefit wildfire recovery and forest resilience, expand recreation opportunities, and conserve strategic land throughout California’s Sierra-Cascade region.
State and Federal Agencies Make Significant Investments in Urban Greening
State and Federal Agencies Make Significant Investments in Urban Greening
USFS Grants Will Increase Equitable Access to Urban Tree Canopy: The U.S. Forest Service is requesting proposals from entities that are working to provide equitable access to trees and green spaces and the benefits they provide. The funding, made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, is part of a $1.5 billion investment in the USFS’ Urban and Community Forestry Program. Of the total funding, the USFS is allocating nearly $47 million directly to the Pacific Southwest Region — $43.2 million to California. The application period ends June 1.
CNRA Invests Over $47 Million in Urban Greening: On April 6, the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) awarded 23 grants totaling $47.5 million through the Urban Greening Grant Program. The selected projects will create more sustainable communities by using natural and green infrastructure approaches, such as replacing schoolyard asphalt with native trees, plants, pollinator gardens and nature-based outdoor play areas, restoring wetlands or riparian corridors, or constructing new commuter paths to reduce vehicles miles traveled.
CAL FIRE Forest Health Awards
CAL FIRE Awards $142 Million For Critical Wildfire Resilience Projects Statewide
CAL FIRE recently announce that $142.6 million has been awarded for statewide investments in projects intended to enhance carbon storage while restoring the health and resilience of existing and recently burned forests throughout California.
CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program awarded 27 grants to local and regional partners implementing projects on state, local, tribal, federal, and private lands spanning over 75,000 acres and 24 counties. Fuels reduction and prescribed fire treatments funded under these grants are aimed at reducing excess vegetation and returning forest and oak woodlands to more fire, drought, and pest-resilient conditions.
“These investments demonstrate CAL FIRE’s ability to deliver on the Governor’s Action Plan and are vital to protect the health of our forests and the safety of our communities.”
– Patrick Wright, Director, California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force
Planscape now lives on the Task Force website
Planscape Now Lives on the Task Force Website
A collaborative effort between CA Natural Resources Agency, USFS, UC Berkeley, Spatial Informatics Group and Google.org, Planscape is a decision support tool that empowers regional planners to prioritize resilience treatments across the landscape and inform the funding process. Planscape partners provided a demonstration of the tool at the March 30 Task Force meeting. This version of the tool is available for beta testing, with the region-specific scenarios released this summer through fall.
RESOURCES
CAL FIRE Announces New Grants Available For Multiple Initiatives
CAL FIRE Announces New Grants Available For Multiple Initiatives
Funding is now available for a wide range of critical needs, from forest health and post-fire reforestation to workforce development and green school yards.
WILDFIRE PREVENTION GRANTS PROGRAM: Up to $120 million for projects focused on protecting people, structures, and communities.
FOREST HEALTH GRANT PROGRAM: Up to $120 million for landscape scale forest restoration and resilience projects.
POST FIRE REFORESTATION AND REGENERATION: Up to $50 million for reforestation treatments.
BUSINESS AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT: Up to $7.5 million for wood products and up to $5 million for biomass transportation subsidy projects.
GREEN SCHOOL YARDS: Up to $117 million to improve tree canopy cover on California K-12 public school campuses and nonprofit childcare facilities.
TRIBAL WILDFIRE RESILIENCE PROGRAM: Up to $15 million is available for wildfire resilience implementation projects. These grant funds will assist California Native American tribes in managing ancestral lands, implementing and promoting Traditional Ecological Knowledge in wildfire resilience, and establishing wildfire safety for tribal communities.
RESOURCES
California Reforestation Pipeline Partnership Aims to Address Key Reforestation Challenges
California Reforestation Pipeline Partnership Aims to Address Key Reforestation Challenges
The California Reforestation Pipeline Partnership (RPP) is a strategic collaboration to help address challenges related to the scale of post-burn reforestation opportunities on public and private lands between the U.S. Forest Service Region 5, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) and the non-profit conservation organization American Forests.
The RPP Cooperative is a new effort of the RPP to increase public-private cooperation on the supply chain that enables reforestation, and is set to kickoff Friday, November 4 in Sacramento with a gathering of top land management officials and forestry professionals.
The need for the RPP emerged from Governor Gavin Newsom’s California Wildfire and Forests Resilience Task Force Reforestation Strategy Working Group, and through a national study, “Challenges to the Reforestation Pipeline in the United States,” which uncovered knowledge and structural gaps that need to be resolved in order to implement solutions at scale across public and private lands.
Post Fire Restoration Symposium
Post Fire Restoration Symposium
This virtual symposium focused on how monitoring and research in the southern Sierra Nevada can support post fire restoration planning and help to inform adaptive management. Topics included treatment effects on wildlife, variable density treatments in plantations, hardwood management, aquatics and meadow restoration. Panel discussions provided the opportunity for collaboration on the implications of the work and how to apply this knowledge to future post fire management. The virtual symposium was held and recorded on July 14, 2022.
Presented by: USDA Forest Service Ecology Program, ACCG, SOFAR, and hosted by the California Fire Science Consortium
Sequoia National Forest Restoring Rough Fire Area With Partners
Sequoia National Forest Restoring Rough Fire Area With Partners
Contractors have begun implementing about 1,340 acres of an approximately 4,900-acre restoration project in the footprint of the 2015 Rough Fire affecting the Kings River drainage in Hume Lake Ranger District. The project is a partnership with the Great Basin Institute and American Forests, with funding from CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program.
RESOURCES
Drill down into more details from the USFS on the Rough Plantation Restoration and Maintenance Project