Thanks to our partners!

Together we're reducing wildfire risk to communities across the country

Andrew Avitt

Pacific Southwest Region

November 27, 2024

Reducing wildfire risk across the country is no small feat. The work requires significant financial investments, a capable and well-equipped workforce and a vision. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service can’t do this work alone. Given the immense scale — encompassing a land area larger than Texas —and the pervasive threat of wildfire, the Forest Service, recognizes the crucial role of partners in its operations and appreciates their support in protecting communities and improving resilience in America’s forests.

The nature of Confronting the Wildfire Crisis is vast. In the last year, the Forest Service and partners invested in more than 1,200 square miles (about half the size of Delaware) of treatments to reduce hazardous fuels in areas with high wildfire risk. We cannot do it alone – the work is collaborative by necessity.

Image shows a wildfire burning in the distance in a suburban area. — At the West Bend Pilot Project in Oregon, members of the USDA Forest Service, U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Land Management, Environmental Protection Agency, DOI Bureau of Indian Affairs, Oregon Department of Environment Quality, Oregon Department of Forestry, Oregon Health Agency, local community members and tribal representatives are working to increase the pace of prescribed fire to reduce wildfire risk and increase ecosystem health. *(USDA Forest Service photo)*

Partners assist with everything from mechanical thinning to prescribed burns, pile burns, delivering firewood to tribes, ensuring National Environment Policy Act compliance, conducting environmental assessments and survey work.

Importance of working together

“A partnership often starts where there's a common understanding and a common concern. Whether that’s the forest, the air, health of a community or economic development,” said Andrea Bedell-Loucks, who manages external affairs and strategic partnerships outreach for the Forest Service Wildfire Risk Reduction Infrastructure Team. “It’s there where the conversation starts and then the collaboration builds.”

Image shows a group of people in hard hats standing by a large front-loader talking. — In northern California, one the Forest Service’s academic partners, the Department of Wildlife at Humboldt State University, modeled the economic viability of reducing wildfire risk across the landscape while an industry partner, Green Diamond Resource Company, demonstrated how new timber harvesting technology can assist in those areas while reducing negative impacts on the land and soil in Northern California. *(USDA Forest Service photo)*

Partners working with the Forest Service come from every sector of society: universities, corporations, tribal governments, nonprofit and for-profit entities and all levels of government – local, county, state, and federal. There are numerous partnered organizations focused on conservation, environmental advocacy, recreation or community.

“By working with partners we get a different perspective, make more informed decisions. We are exposed to different innovative approaches and increase our connections to communities that we serve.” said Bedell-Loucks. “Partners also bring investment — intellectual, monetary, and sweat and tears investment — political and social capital.”

A group of women sit at a table leading a bar trivia panel. — Though the agency relies heavily on partnerships with large organizations, there are thousands of smaller partners across the country engaged in caring for the nation’s forests and reducing wildfire risk, or raising awareness with local events like this trivia night in Bend, Oregon which aimed to open a dialogue with the community to increase safety and support of wildfire risk mitigation work. *(USDA Forest Service photo)*

Bedell-Loucks has seen wildfire risk reduction from both the partner and Forest Service perspectives. After studying forest ecology at Duke University, she spent more than ten years working in support of community-based forestry organizations before joining the Forest Service.

“Then and now, the Forest Service’s partnerships are all based on a mutual benefit, that the work will benefit the public, the agency and the partner,” said Bedell-Loucks. “They have a role in helping us get more done, but also advocating for our collective work, engaging the public, raising awareness and increasing collaboration.”

Image shows a group of firefighters in hard hats and safety gear holding a briefing before going to work. — Wildland firefighters make final coordination before embarking on another day of USDA Forest Service-led and The Nature Conservancy-supported prescribed fire work on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico in December 2023. *(USDA Forest Service photo)*

Addressing wildfire risk

Prescribed fire is one major tool in reducing wildfire risk. Removing excess vegetation with fire can help firefighters contain future wildfires. One of the Forest Service’s longstanding partners, The Nature Conservancy, is assisting the agency with this work across the country.

Just this year, the added capacity of 93 fire personnel from The Nature Conservancy helped implement 36 prescribed burns on eight national forests, including the Arapahoe-Roosevelt, Boise, Caribou-Targhee, Gila, Idaho Panhandle, Okanogan-Wenatchee, Payette, Tahoe and the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache national forests.

Image is a side-by-side pair of images, one of a machine cutting down a burned tree and the other a small prescribed fire. — The National Wild Turkey Federation is among the many large partners that work with the Forest Service across the country. From left to right you can see some of the work they are doing in many states across the country to thin and restore ecosystems while lowering wildfire risk. (Photos courtesy of the National Wild Turkey Federation)

Equity in partnership

In line with the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and other agency priorities, the Forest Service has been actively expanding its partnership network to achieve equity goals. As part of this effort, the agency is working to establish new, impactful partnerships with a variety of organizations and practitioners who prioritize diversity and equity. These partnerships are crucial in helping us meet our mission objectives and agency priorities.

One of these partners is PEK Services, a minority-owned nonprofit organization based in Detroit, Michigan, that trains local residents from all career backgrounds and walks of life to join the urban and community forestry workforce.

Image shows two men in hard hats standing on a piece of construction equipment in a forest. — PEK Services workers performing vegetative thinning work on the Croatan National Forest in North Carolina. Vegetation thinning reduces wildfire risk by removing the excess flammable plant materials that a wildfire would need to grow and spread.

Beyond training, PEK Services teams engage in real-world work to help protect forests and communities from wildfires and restore ecosystems. PEK Services teams are helping identify and survey cultural resources on the Huron-Manistee National Forest. Their work will help ensure that cultural resources are protected during future Kirtland’s Warbler habitat management, hazardous fuels reduction and potential wildfire management work.

Further south, PEK Services began another project to complete 120 acres of vegetative thinning and plant longleaf pine seedlings on more than 200 acres in North Carolina on the Croatan National Forest. Their work supports wildfire resilient ecosystems and communities by reducing hazardous fuels, restoring ecosystems, protecting watersheds and engaging communities.

Helping partners help communities

Just as partners support needed work on national forests, the Forest Service also supports partners through grants. Recently, Forest Service grant recipients, The Washoe Tribe of Nevada & California and Tahoe Forest Products, opened a new sawmill in Carson City, Nevada, that will be essential to reduce wildfire risk to communities and begin the restoration process from the Caldor Fire.

Image shows a lumber yard with stacked piles of lumber. — Saw logs at Tahoe Forest Products mill were taken from Sierra-at-Tahoe Ski Resort as a part of the Caldor Fire recovery effort. Disaster supplemental relief funding has helped remove 22 million board feet from the ski resort. (USDA Forest Service photo by Andrew Avitt)

The new Tahoe Forest Products sawmill is projected to produce 50 to 60 million board feet of lumber per year, employ 75 people, and support thousands more industry jobs in the area. The timber will be largely sourced from and support two Wildfire Crisis Landscape Project areas. These two projects include the Sierra Front Landscape, which encompasses nearly two million acres on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, and North Yuba Landscape which totals 313,000 acres northwest of Lake Tahoe.

Grants not only support industry and community partners in getting the work done, but they also help partners explore innovative solutions to some of land management’s most vexing challenges. For example, Wood Innovation Grants help partner with projects like exploring renewable construction materials, biofuel products and more affordable wildfire insurance. Grants and similar programs are made possible with significant investments through funding sources such as the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and annual appropriations.

Two people kneeling on top of a stack of engineered wood panels inside a factory. — Workers at Freres Engineered Wood manufacture engineered wooden panels and wooden beams that can be used in place of steel and concrete in construction of large commercial and multifamily buildings. (*USDA Forest Service photo by Preston Keres*)

To learn more about grants available through the Forest Service and our partners, visit the Forest Service Grants and Agreements Center page and Grants.gov.

All year — and especially today — the Forest Service thanks partners who are essential to doing the work across the nation’s forests. In partnership, the agency furthers a robust strategy to reduce wildfire risk to communities and provide natural resources to support the local and national economy.