Mail Ridge Wildfire Resilience Project, Phase 1
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Project Overview
Basics
Mail Ridge Wildfire Resilience Project, Phase 1
- Address Climate Change and Extreme Event Effects, Impacts and Vulnerabilities
- Integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Collaboration with Tribes
- Prioritize Plans, Projects and Actions that Result in Long Term Sustainability of Jobs & Revenues
- Protect and Enhance Forest Based Carbon
- Protect and Enhance Watersheds and Ecosystems that Provide Water Quality and Supply Benefits
NCRP CAL FIRE Forest Health Pilot
Planning/Design
Phase 1 Implementation of a multi-phased fuel reduction project along and adjacent to Mail Ridge, a prominent geographic feature in Southern Humboldt, was identified as a priority project in the Humboldt County CWPP has been designed in close collaboration with trusted implementation partners Briceland Volunteer Fire Department, Trees Foundation, Eel River Wailaki and Native Health in Native Hands. The purpose of the project is to promote forest health and disaster resilient forests, protect nearby vulnerable communities from fire risk, and make significant progress toward restoration of the traditional role of low intensity fire.
2023
2025
2027
7/18/2025
Project Attributes
General Information
Project Description Narrative (1,000 character limit)
The Mail Ridge Wildfire Resilience Project, Phase 1 is the first fuels reduction and prescribed fire implementation effort of a larger, landscape-scale project along the entire 54-mile long crest of Mail Ridge in southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino counties. Past management practices and the exclusion of low-intensity fire has increased the region’s vulnerability to catastrophic wildfire, jeopardizing the ability of forests to sequester carbon and perform critical ecological functions into the future. The Phase 1 project will result in implementation of a 24-acre ridgetop fuel break, 64 acres of oak woodland restoration, and 269-acres treated by prescribed fire, utilizing local workforce and cultural fire practitioners, contributing to increased forest resiliency and the first, significant step towards restoration of the traditional role of low-intensity fire on the landscape.
Solutions
Capacity - Data and Planning, Climate Action - Adaptation, Climate Action - Carbon Sequestration and Storage, Climate Action - Emissions Reduction, Community Health and Safety - Fuel Breaks, Ecosystem Conservation and Restoration - Land Acquisition & Protection, Ecosystem Conservation and Restoration - Tribal Ecocultural Restoration, Fire Resilient Forests - Beneficial Fire Barriers, Fire Resilient Forests - Fuel Management, Fire Resilient Forests - Tribal Cultural Fire
Spatial Information
Tribal Region
None
Project Size (Acres)
397
acres
Location
None Selected
Not in a tribal boundary.
Organizations
| Contract Manager | |
| Funders | |
| Partners | |
| Project Sponsor | |
| Local and/or Political Support | CAL FIRE Humboldt Del-Norte Unit, Southern Humboldt Fire Safe Council, Humboldt County Fire Safe Council, Volunteer Fire Departments, Southern Humboldt Fire Chiefs Association, USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, UCCE, elected officials |
Contacts
Katherine Gledhill - North Coast Resource Partnership (NCRP) (kgledhill@northcoastresourcepartnership.org)
| Contact | |
|---|---|
| Additional Representative |
|
| Authorized Contact |
Project Benefit Performance Measures
Expected Project Benefit Performance Measures
| Carbon storage | Habitat type: Grasslands | Not Provided |
| Carbon storage | Habitat type: Oak woodlands | Not Provided |
| Carbon storage | Habitat type: Forest | Not Provided |
| Community Health and Safety - # of projects | Project type: Firefighting readiness improvement | 1 count |
| Education & outreach - # of participants | 300 | |
| Education & Outreach - types of participants | Participant Types: Homeowner/landowner | 150 |
| Education & Outreach - types of participants | Participant Types: Tribes/ Tribal members | 15 |
| Education & Outreach - types of participants | Participant Types: Professionals (consultants, agency staff, NGOs, RCDs, etc.) | 100 |
| Education & Outreach - types of participants | Participant Types: Students | 22 |
| Education & Outreach - types of participants | Participant Types: General Public | 10 |
| Education & Outreach - types of participants | Participant Types: Elected officials | 3 |
| Fuels Reduction (area) | Treatment Type: Other | 281 acres |
| Invasive Species/pest management | Habitat type: grassland/wetland Treatment type: Other | 116 acres |
| Job/workforce training - # of participants | 8 | |
| Prescribed and/or Cultural Fire | Treatment type: pile burn | 4 acres |
| Prescribed and/or Cultural Fire | Treatment type: prescribed burn - broadcast | 385 acres |
Reported Project Benefit Performance Measures
Reported Project Benefit Performance Measures are not relevant for Projects in the Planning/Design stage.
Financials
Budget
| Comment: | None provided |
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Reported Expenditures
No Expenditures have been reported for this Project.
| Note: | None provided |
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Project Types
Project Types
In coordination with USDA NRCS and UCCE, data will be collected on the effects of prescribed fire such as fuel load reduction and reduce of invasive species. GIS data will be submitted into Humboldt County's CWPP online Hubsite which allows the general public to be educated on forest health work and allows professionals to build complementary projects with greater continuity on the landscape.
The project proposed will leverage current investments to build enduring, local capacity and jobs for implementation of fuels reduction and beneficial fire that enable long-term land stewardship to ensure that project benefits and co-benefits are realized into the future. By engaging local volunteer fire departments this project secures funding to keep volunteer firefighters engaged and available for work.
The project supports jobs by leveraging workforce development investments such as training qualified firefighters to provide the services necessary for the successful implementation of planned treatments, and utilizing increased local capacity for forestry/fuels crews and cultural and Rx burn implementation to benefit the local economy. It engages local consultants such as archeologists, foresters, biologists, and environmental compliance experts.
This project in itself will be an education and outreach opportunity to the Southern Humboldt community to pilot the return of low-intensity fire to the landscape and promote Traditional Ecological Knowledge as the cornerstone of Southern Humboldt's land stewardship ethic. Newsletters and social media posts will be created and shared to the general public. Project partners will table at local community events.
Treatment areas that extend downslope from the ridge include restorative thinning to promote late seral stage conditions in conifer forests, limiting the encroachment of conifers into oak woodlands, and using prescribed fire for ecological restoration and cost-efficient fuel management. In combining these treatments, this project will assist in increasing heterogeneity of vegetation communities and forest densities, reducing vulnerability to wildfires and other large-scale disturbance events, and facilitating continued use of beneficial fire to restore landscape-level ecological processes.
By reducing the intensity and spread rate of wildfire within the treatment unit, the project will improve firefighter access and safety, provide control points for operations such as backfiring, reduce fire hazard along major evacuation routes, and reduce the likelihood of a northeasterly wind-driven wildfire spreading to the communities and associate infrastructure along the South Fork of the Eel River.
This project will help to conserve and enhance the watersheds in which it is located by reducing the area’s vulnerability to catastrophic wildfire, thereby protecting critical ecological functions and habitats that support biodiversity of native wildlife and plants.
This project will minimize the potential for catastrophic, stand-replacing fires and associated GHG emmissions, promoting suitainable forest-based carbon, ecosystem function, and habitat resilience. Southern Humboldt is considered a climate refugia due to the diversity and heterogeneity of habitats present, and the unique climatic conditions and oceanic influences of the region that buffer it from the aridity of interior lands. The treatments to reduce conifer encroachment in historic oak woodlands will support the biodiversity of these habitats in a changing climate.
Project Details
Attachments
Supplemental Application
- Uploaded On
- 8/3/2024
- File Type
- Word (DOCX)
- Description
- Mail Ridge Wildfire Resilience Project, Phase 1 Supplemental Application
Certificate of Authority
- Uploaded On
- 8/3/2024
- File Type
- Description
- Mail Ridge Wildfire Resilience Project, Phase 1 Certificate of Authority
Organization Statement of Qualification
- Uploaded On
- 8/3/2024
- File Type
- Description
- Mail Ridge Wildfire Resilience Project, Phase 1 Statement of Qualifications included on Page 2 within Certification of Authority document
Mail Ridge Wildfire Resiliency Project, Phase 1 Project Workbook
- Uploaded On
- 8/4/2024
- File Type
- Excel (XLSX)
- Description
- Mail Ridge Wildfire Resiliency Project, Phase 1 Project Workbook Corrected
Supplemental Docs - Letters of Support and Maps.
- Uploaded On
- 8/4/2024
- File Type
- Description
- Mail Ridge Wildfire Resilience Project, Phase 1 Letters of Support and Maps.
No attachments
Notes
No Notes entered.
External Links
Photos
Photos
No Photos available.