West Mount Shasta Forest Resiliency Project
This project is located in the Upper Sacramento Watershed west of Interstate-5 in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) west of the City of Mount Shasta to the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. It consists of vegetation treatments that will reduce wildfire risks to both the community and forest lands, increase forest resiliency, and enhance wildlife habitat.
This project covers about 13,000 acres of private lands and will connect past and future cross-boundary, landscape-level treatments in the Mount Shasta area. Proposed treatments include thinning, brush reduction, prescribed burning, and meadow restoration.
The Goals and Objectives of the project include:
- Provide for public safety and community protection by reducing wildfire risks, removing hazardous fuels, providing for defensible space around structures in the WUI, and creating safe ingress and egress for communities and firefighters to utilize in the event of a wildfire
- Improve forest resilience to reduce impacts from threats such as wildfire, drought, and pests by restoring forest ecosystem to conditions consistent with historical fire regimes, enhancing meadows by removing encroaching vegetation and reintroducing fire, and increasing ecosystem diversity.
SVRCD has engaged many local stakeholders in the development of this project including the Shasta Trinity National Forest, CalFire, Natural Resource Conservation District, Mount Shasta Fire Safe Council, Siskiyou Land Trust, and the McConnell Foundation.
Phase 1 of implementation is expected to begin in Fall 2022.