Living With Fire

Forest Health and Fire Resources Update

May 1, 2025
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Spring 2025

By Chelsea Sproul, Fire Resources Coordinator

Trees Foundation’s Forest Health and Fire Resources Program has been hard at work on multiple fronts, including coordinating current fuel reduction projects like the Shelter Cove Wildfire Resilience and Community Defense Project (SCWRCDP), conducting community outreach and organizing around projects like the Mail Ridge Shaded Fuel Break, supporting Native workforce and capacity building, and applying for future funding opportunities.

Funding from CAL FIRE’s Mattole and Salmon Creek Forest Health Grant, and the State Coastal Conservancy’s Mail Ridge Shaded Fuel Break grant is winding down. However, our work continues on these large-scale projects, and we are hopeful that pending grant funding will be awarded in 2025, enabling us to expand this important work for both the community and the environment.

Shelter Cove Wildfire Resilience and Community Defense Project

Thankfully, this $6.2 million USDA Community Wildfire Defense Grant funding has been reinstated. This essential funding was placed on hold for one month as part of a review of government expenditures before being reinstated at the end of February 2025. Community advocacy and outreach to elected officials played a critical role in ensuring that this project continues. Thank you for your support.

The SCWRCDP provides free Home Risk and Defensible Space Assessments as well as free fuel reduction treatment to all homeowners and lot owners in the Shelter Cove Resort Improvement District. With funding restored, work has begun again. After crews finish the treatments in residential areas, the project will shift focus to fuel reduction for undeveloped parcels. If you own property at the Cove and haven’t signed up yet, now is the time! Sign up by clicking the link at treesfoundation.org or reach out at (707) 923-4377 to schedule an appointment with one of our Home Risk Assessment Technicians.

Mattole & Salmon Creek Forest Health and Fire Resilience Project

In 2022, CAL FIRE entered into a nearly $5 million grant agreement with the Humboldt County Resource Conservation District to implement the Mattole and Salmon Creek Forest Health and Wildfire Resilience Project across 1,022 acres of forest and grasslands near Petrolia and Salmon Creek by early 2026. Trees Foundation has been able to do a lot of great work with this funding. Highlights include:

  • Community outreach, sponsorship, and organizing for an educational workshop with cultural fire specialist Kathy McCovey in Salmon Creek as well as for two N’Shong Konk “Good Fire” Conferences at the Mateel Community Center in 2023 to support the reintroduction of beneficial fire to our local ecosystem.
  • Support for landowners interested in forest health and fuels reduction activities through educational publications and advertisements, participation in regional events and direct outreach. In 2024, Trees staff helped organize and facilitate sessions at Eel River Recovery Project and the Northern Mendocino Ecosystem Recovery Alliance’s Forest Health Extravaganza, and are staffing an information table at the second annual event in March 2025.
  • The ongoing stewardship and monitoring of culturally significant plant species at Southern Humboldt Community Park (SoHum Park), submitting grant applications for further funding for park projects, as well as developing a burn plan for the park.
  • Supporting the planning of two Cultural burns in 2023 and 2024 to help prepare for broadcast burning of a 30-acre culturally managed area at SoHum Park, as well as training for local partner groups Eel River Wailaki (ERW) and Native Health in Native Hands (NHNH).

State Coastal Conservancy – Mail Ridge Shaded Fuel Break Project

This project aims to advance the planning of a multi-phased fuel reduction project identified as a priority project in the Humboldt County Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) along and adjacent to the crest of Mail Ridge, a 54-mile-long strategic ridgeline in southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino counties. Funding from the State Coastal Conservancy enabled Trees Foundation to make progress on this project in the following crucial ways:

  • Working directly with landowners in the Mail Ridge region to build awareness and support for the project fuel break and optimize the ecological benefits of treatment plans.
  • Building bridges between Native and non-Native fire resilience and land stewardship partners, including coordination support for the first Cultural burn in southern Humboldt in over 150 years, which included active participation by ERW, NHNH, Wailaki Cultural Fire Crew, Briceland and Garberville VFDs, Humboldt County Prescribed Burn Association, and Southern Humboldt Community Park.
  • Coordinating with NHNH and ERW to purchase personal protective equipment and other critical supplies for the development of their Cultural Fire crews, contributing to ongoing workforce development and capacity building.
  • Volunteer coordination and promotion support for ERW’s inaugural Big Time event, featuring a wide array of TEK workshops.
  • Sponsorship support for the Xa-Cho K’ut Kinest’e Canoe Ceremony, a river day celebration of the return of a Wailaki Redwood Canoe to the Xa-Cho (Eel River) after 170 years of absence.
  • Planning and sponsorship support for the Kash-Cho Son-ing-Be’ Acorn Camp, a Native Food Sovereignty Day at Richardson Grove State Park.