New Report Captures Lessons from California’s Emergency Forest Restoration Teams

By Daylin Wade
UC Cooperative Extension

University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) has published a report of lessons learned from pilot Emergency Forest Restoration Teams (EFRTs) which quickly assisted private landowners with forest restoration following major 2021 wildfires in California’s Sierra Nevada. Development of EFRTs was recommended in the 2021 California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan to address increasing high severity fire effects on non-industrial private forest lands, which comprise 22% of the forested land in California. After high severity wildfire in California’s mixed conifer and yellow pine forests, which are adapted to frequent, low severity fire, rapid action is often needed to reestablish forest stands and remove fuels that increase the risk of future high severity fire. Landowners are often overwhelmed after wildfire and frequently lack the resources to undertake forest restoration on their own.

Three pilot EFRT programs were developed to assist landowners affected by the 2021 Caldor, Dixie, and Tamarack Fires, led by local agencies (El Dorado Resource Conservation District (RCD), Feather River RCD, and Alpine County). Funded by CAL FIRE and the U.S. Forest Service State and Private Forestry, lead agencies each developed a new program, identified priority treatment areas, and hired contractors to remove dead trees, replant conifers, and manage vegetation competing with planted seedlings. Work was completed at no cost to landowners, whereas preexisting landowner assistance programs in California (including CAL FIRE’s California Forest Improvement Program, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Environmental Quality Incentive Program, and the USDA Farm Service Agency’s Emergency Forest Restoration Program) require that landowners pay a portion of treatment costs and hire contractors on their own.   

Funded by the U.S. Forest Service State and Private Forestry, UCCE staff conducted interviews with those involved in planning and implementing the three pilot EFRTs. Key lessons synthesized from the first two years of the programs are summarized here.

EFRTs were successful: Each program delivered rapid forest restoration treatments on private land where such timely work would not likely have happened otherwise. Collectively, dead trees were removed on over 2,500 acres and conifer seedlings planted on about 1,400 acres by the end of 2023. An additional 2,700 acres were seeded with forb, grass and shrub species to reestablish vegetative cover in the arid Tamarack Fire region.

Rapid funding made timely restoration possible: Special disaster relief funding available to the EFRTs in 2022 through CAL FIRE and the U.S. Forest Service did not require a competitive application process or prior identification of lands to be treated. Additional such funds would facilitate rapid response in the future.
Prioritizing treatment areas was crucial: Facing large scale need for forest restoration on private lands, each program prioritized treatments close to communities most affected by the fires.

Program success relied on clear and consistent communication with landowners, who were often difficult to reach after fire, and overwhelmed by the many aspects of post-fire recovery.

Salvage logging reduced the woody material to be treated: Though commercial outlets for saw logs and wood chips were limited, where markets allowed, EFRT managers either allowed for wood sales under work contracts or encouraged landowners to undertake salvage logging prior to EFRT treatments.

Permitting for post-fire forest restoration is complex and should be streamlined: Multiple permitting pathways and lack of clarity in post-fire restoration permitting led to some inefficiencies, limitations and redundancies in permitting.

Collaboration between agencies facilitates restoration: When possible, information sharing with other agencies engaged in emergency response work on private lands made EFRT work more efficient. Where EFRTs were able to coordinate treatments and priority treatment areas with other landowner assistance programs, the scale of restoration work was increased. Both types of collaboration could be expanded.

The report, available at https://ucanr.edu/efrt along with a summary, is dedicated to the memory of co-author and UCCE Forestry Advisor Ryan Tompkins, who tragically passed away before its completion.