Wildfire Resilience Block Grants
Department: CAL FIRE
Program Description: CAL FIRE created Wildfire Resilience Block Grants in 2022 to build local capacity while providing financial and technical forestry assistance to nonindustrial forest landowners. The power of this program comes from the regional partner’s ability to set parameters for assistance that directly meet the unique needs of the landowners in their local region. As part of these grants, CAL FIRE also created and funded Emergency Forest Restoration Teams (EFRT) to quickly restore forestlands burned by wildfires, often funding them while the fire is still ongoing.
Projects under this grant:
- Make funding available through agreements with landowners to pay for specific, non-commercial ecological forest improvement and wildfire resilience practices.
- Provide technical assistance to promote information sharing and education on the full range of effective forest management practices and opportunities as well as forest management education and management planning.
Program Impact: This support for small forest landowners includes:
- Eleven grant funded projects awarded, totaling more than $30 million.
- More than12,000 acres planned for treatment.
- More than 500 individual landowners assisted.
- More than 500,000 seedlings to be planted.
Resilience in Action: The Dixie Fire ignited on July 13th 2021, eventually burning 963,309 acres in Plumas, Butte, Lassen and Tehama Counties. The fire caused significant damage and the destruction of communities and ecologies. Half the fire burned with a tree mortality of 90 percent, creating landscape conditions without the potential for natural regeneration, susceptible to type conversion, erosion, and with residual hazardous fuels.
CAL FIRE awarded an $8M grant to the Feather River Resource Conservation District to formulate an Emergency Forest Restoration Team (EFoRT) in early 2022 to address this unprecedented need. The EFoRT is working with NIPF landowners to provide technical assistance and implement post-fire restoration activities across 2,558 acres. They are providing rapid assessments, securing permitting, and creating an implementation plan to satisfy restoration goals. EFoRT will ultimately implement these forest management plans.
