Plumas National Forest pursues ambitious wildfire protection plan
The U.S. Forest Service has launched the Plumas Community Protection project to safeguard 285,000 acres of Northern California's Plumas National Forest from megafires through thinning, logging, and prescribed burns. Funded by $274 million from Congress in 2023, the initiative aims to build forest resilience following the devastating 2021 Dixie Fire. However, progress has been slow amid bureaucratic challenges and limited transparency.
The 2021 Dixie Fire, California's largest single blaze on record, scorched nearly one million acres and destroyed the town of Greenville in under 30 minutes, highlighting the vulnerability of Plumas National Forest. Two-thirds of the forest—twice the size of San Francisco Bay—has burned in the last seven years, threatening watersheds serving 27 million people and habitats for deer, bald eagles, and wolf packs.
A 2022 study by fire scientist Malcolm North found forests six to seven times denser than historically, exacerbated by climate change and a century of fire suppression. This overcrowding fuels catastrophic wildfires, risking conversion to shrubs and permanent forest loss, warns Michael Hall, manager of the Feather River Resource Conservation District. "If we don’t deal with the threat such fires pose, the soil and seed banks that replenish forests will be destroyed," Hall says.
In response, the Forest Service's Plumas Community Protection project targets 285,000 acres with chain saws, masticators, and drip torches to thin vegetation and enable low-intensity burns. Congress allocated $274 million via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, part of $3.2 billion for 45 million high-risk acres nationwide. Contracts include $85 million to Sierra Tahoe Environmental Management and $98 million to the National Forest Foundation, each for 70,000 acres near Quincy and Portola.
Yet, two years in, implementation lags. Forest Service reports indicate 49,496 acres treated in 2023 and 5,400 in 2024, far below goals, with only about 2,500 acres of essential broadcast burns completed. Environmental lawsuits delayed approvals, and Trump administration layoffs have reduced staffing. Ryan Bauer, retired fuels manager, laments the slow pace: "If we had burned 10,000-acre patches, we’d have 10,000-acre patches of surviving forest."
Experts like Angela Avery of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy emphasize the need for landscape-scale efforts to counter megafires, though transparency remains limited, with officials unresponsive to public inquiries.