A $5 million CAL FIRE Forest Health Program grant is supporting the Western Klamath Restoration Partnership in their efforts to restore fire resilience at the landscape scale along the Klamath River. This project is part of a larger effort by the Western Klamath Restoration Partnership to improve forest health and resilience across a 1.2 million acre planning area that includes much of the Karuk Tribe’s ancestral homelands.
The Western Klamath Restoration Partnership is a collaborative group co-led by representatives from the Karuk Tribe, Mid Klamath Watershed Council, Salmon River Restoration Council, and the U.S. Forest Service, with many other stakeholders, communities, and organizations involved. The Klamath region, like many parts of the state, is increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic wildfire due to historical and modern fire suppression policies and a changing climate. These conditions pose an unprecedented threat to the region’s communities, cultural resources, unique biodiversity, and significant carbon stocks.
Through this project, the Western Klamath Restoration Partnership is carrying manual and mechanical fuels reduction treatments, prescribed burns, and past management activities across 8,000 acres with the goal of restoring healthy fire processes to the landscape. Project partners have completed over 4,000 acres of vegetation thinning and prescribed fire treatments through 2018 and 2021 using CAL FIRE Forest Health Program funds, with project completion expected in early 2025.
These efforts are reducing vulnerability for various communities including Happy Camp, Orleans, Somes Bar, Forks of Salmon, and Cecilville. Restoring fire processes will contribute to improved water quality and yield, healthier streams and aquatic populations, increased wildlife and plant diversity, cultural revitalization, and a reliable supply of forest products. The Karuk people once frequently used low-intensity fire to promote more resilient conditions on the landscape, and the Tribe has been working to restore fire to its ancestral territory since the inception of fire exclusion policies. This project will promote culturally significant natural resources vital to the preservation and perpetuation of Karuk culture.
“The strategies being implemented through this project demonstrate how local, state, tribal and federal partners can come together to change their shared fire future,” said Will Harling the project lead and director of the Mid Klamath Watershed Council. “We are building local capacity to bring fire back in a good way, from manual and mechanical thinning that allows for safe implementation of large-scale prescribed burns, to centering traditional knowledge in project prescriptions and working closely with tribal partners to ensure cultural objectives are met.”
