Launched in 2010, the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) emerged from a critical need. After a hundred years of fire suppression, ponderosa forests became dangerously crowded, posing risks to local communities and the water supplies. (USDA Forest Service video by Preston Keres)

A $300 million sawmill might not seem like a typical hero in combating devastating wildfires. Still, in northern Arizona, it has become precisely that. Restoration Forest Products, the largest mill ever constructed in the state, is part of a growing coalition involving industry, counties and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service working together on the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, known as 4FRI. This partnership aims to restore nearly two million acres of ponderosa pine while safeguarding watersheds, homes and livelihoods.

Addressing a critical need

Launched in 2010, 4FRI was born out of a critical need. After a century of fire suppression, ponderosa forests across Arizona had become dangerously crowded, ironically increasing the risk of devastating wildfires. This situation posed risks to communities near these forests and threatened the water supplies of cities farther away, including Phoenix, the nation’s fifth-largest city.

Addressing those risks while ensuring that those critical water supplies are protected is a tall order beyond any one individual organization. Thus, the idea of 4FRI was born: to take resources, match them with vital partners, and put them to work where they would do the most good.

“4FRI is important because of our ability to strategically invest resources, time and commitment into 2.4 million acres of national forest lands and numerous rural communities across all of northern Arizona,” says Forest Service 4FRI Program Manager Scot Rogers. “We’ve spent the last 15 years bringing stakeholders of different spectrums to the table, and for the most part, we have complete alignment when it comes to what active forest management looks like here, what success looks like.”

While these efforts are vital to Arizona, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz understands they could make an even bigger difference as a model that could be applied nationwide.

“It’s been very exciting to see what 4FRI's successful model means, both for the forests and communities, because the issues the 4FRI team is addressing can be found all across the country,” Schultz observed. “The ability to restore the landscape while protecting communities from wildfire, not to mention supporting local economies, is vital to meeting our mission.”

Harvesting trees, rebuilding ecosystems

One of the clearest examples of this program’s potential is the Belmont, Arizona, mill operated by Restoration Forest Products, or RFOR. Although it might seem counterintuitive to some, a sawmill is quite beneficial to forest ecology.

In overcrowded ponderosa pine forests, wildfires can become especially dangerous. When trees grow too close together, they create extra fuel, making wildfires burn hotter and spread faster. This dense growth enables flames to climb into the tree canopy, where they spread rapidly from tree to tree.

The overcrowding in the forest also poses problems for the forest’s health beyond wildfires. Tightly packed trees make it easier for diseases and invasive insect pests to spread, and many species of wildlife originally evolved to make use of open spaces within the forest that the thick forest no longer has.

Thinning the forest, then, is a great way to improve forest health while reducing the potential for devastating wildfires. But removing sufficient numbers of trees across areas the size of the ponderosa forests in Arizona is a tall undertaking that requires significant resources. A sawmill that can purchase the trees and use them to make forest products can help address that resource gap, while also benefiting the local economy.

Without mills to process the wood, forest restoration would stall.

In Belmont, RFOR invested $300 million in the state’s largest sawmill to power this work forward.

On its 75-acre site, RFOR employs 220 people directly while using services that support four times as many indirectly, and at the same time, processes enough timber to treat about 24,000 acres annually.

“The idea behind its construction was to help support the 4FRI initiative,” says RFOR CEO Tony Flagor. “Our mission isn’t to just harvest trees,” Flagor says. “It’s to help rebuild the ecosystem.”

Enlisting local support

The idea behind 4FRI goes beyond just direct federal government-private partnerships. After all, local governments know the stakes of wildfire prevention as well. In fact, they are well aware that wildfire risk doesn’t stop once the flames are extinguished. The effects of wildfires can be felt for years afterwards.

As Coconino County Flood Control District Forest Restoration Director Jay Smith explains, “We’re trying to reduce wildfire risk, especially on steep slopes that would result in post-fire flooding.”

Understanding that this broad partnership effort is an effective strategy to leverage as many resources as possible, Flagstaff voters approved a $10 million bond to fund forest work on federal land. This work is designed to ensure the forest remains healthy, reducing wildfire risk and the potential for post-wildfire hazards. It also demonstrates that federal, state and local government funding can be combined with private funding to achieve the best results.

“It’s a very well-educated community that supports the work we’re doing,” Smith says. “For every $2 that industry has invested in local partners, $1 has been invested from the Forest Service. The results are more acres being treated—and that is the key point.”

Bridging the biomass bottleneck

Smith also highlights the ongoing challenge of the “biomass bottleneck." Biomass includes vegetation and leftover tree parts not used for lumber. Besides causing lost profits, biomass left in forests can fuel wildfires, making them burn hotter and longer. Removing it is crucial for both forest health and potential economic gains.

Schultz acknowledges the challenge biomass poses: “What’s exciting about what the work they’re doing down there is trying to find alternate markets for some of the biomass, and that’s something across the country we struggle with. Getting that to pay its way out of the forest has been difficult.”

Each treated acre produces 12 to 20 tons of low-value material. “We’re still struggling to find industry to come in and consume the biomass we produce,” Smith says.

But partnerships with universities, nonprofits, and industry are working toward solutions.

A hands-on activity

For the Forest Service, years of collaboration have built public trust.

“The amount of social license we have across the 4FRI landscape is remarkable,” says Coconino National Forest Supervisor Aaron Mayville. “That is borne out of years of work; stakeholder meetings,  analysis, and other collaboration. The public knows what we’re doing and is broadly supportive. There’s a real sense in these communities that this work is necessary.”

Mayville adds that rebuilding the industry has been critical. “You cannot just snap your fingers, and the industry turns back on again,” he explained. “That has been a heavy lift by communities, the county and the city. We’re at a place now where we have a real diversity of industry, big and small, across the spectrum. It really is a partnership.”

On the Kaibab National Forest in northern Arizona, Forest Supervisor Nicole Branton highlights how that mix works in practice. Instead of treating each company project and forest separately, as is the usual practice, 4FRI has allowed the Forest Service to approach the management of all the units participating in a unified manner, dramatically increasing efficiency.

“We’ve been operating as one landscape for more than a decade now,” Branton explained. “We have our NEPA analysis done across the whole 4.2 million acres of 4FRI.”

Branton also observed that the holistic approach means she can support a range of industry sizes. For instance, she has kept half her timber sales with RFOR and half with smaller, family loggers.

“I’m proud we’re able to work together with community members who can make a living off the forest and protect their neighbors while doing it,” she noted.

Branton also emphasized how this approach to active management is benefitting the health of the forest, not just the local economy.

“There are a lot of people who think a dense forest is a healthy forest,” she explains. “But here, that’s not true ecologically. A healthy ponderosa pine forest should look kind of park-like—large, open, sunny areas with clumps of trees.”

For her, industry is essential to restoring that balance. “Taking care of a national forest is not a hands-off activity,” she says. “We have to actively manage to avoid outcomes that threaten communities.”

More than a product

Together, these partnerships are making a real difference. In 2024, 4FRI successfully treated more acres of hazardous fuel than ever before, and the partnership shows no signs of slowing down.

For Rogers, the formula is clear: scale and inclusion. “What we’ve built is a shared understanding and shared language,” he observed. “We’re not arguing over where or how to treat. We’re focused on doing the work.”

Flagor agreed, “The work we’ve done here is a roadmap of success. We’re solution oriented. There’s a willingness to work together and say let’s not lose sight of the mission.”

Back at the Belmont mill, another truckload of lumber arrives for processing. Each board isn’t just a product; it shows that when industry, government and communities collaborate with a shared vision, forests can become healthier, and towns can become safer. In northern Arizona, restoration isn’t just an idea; it’s a reality built gradually, acre by acre and partnership by partnership.