Forest Health
CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program works with local partners to improve forest health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in forests throughout California.
The Forest Health Program is part of CAL FIRE’s Climate and Energy Program and addresses the risk to California’s forests from extreme disturbance events including catastrophic wildfires, drought, and pest mortality. These events are the result of climate change, forest overcrowding, past land management practices, and an increasing number of people living in the wildland and urban interface.
The Forest Health Program is responsible for administering Forest Health grants, piloting a regional grant program to build capacity and scale up investments across the state, and implementing a monitoring program to better understand the outcomes of grant-funded activities.
Our Program at Work
The Forest Health Program supports landscape restoration projects to improve forest resilience, sequester carbon, and protect communities.
CAL FIRE has awarded more than $700 million in Forest Health grants to 148 projects through 2025. Collectively, these projects will treat more than 410,000 unique acres across the state and are anticipated to store nearly 15 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over their lifetimes. (Photo credit: Mid Klamath Watershed Council)
Grantee: American Forests
Grant Amount: $4.9 million
Reforestation Acres: 3,342
GHG Benefit: 414,150 metric tons CO2e
American Forests has led an effort to replant giant sequoias and other native conifers in areas that were severely burned on the Sequoia National Forest, the Tule River Reservation, and CAL FIRE’s Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest. Read more. (Photo credit: Kat Barton, American Forests)
Grantee: Shelterwood Collective
Grant Amount: $4.9 million
Fuels Reduction Acres: 833
GHG Benefit: 50,120 metric tons CO2e
The Shelterwood Collective, a Black- and Indigenous-led non-profit, is restoring a Sonoma County forest that is home to old growth redwoods, oak woodlands, and creeks that run into the Russian River while connecting people to the land. Read more. (Photo credit: Shelterwood Collective)
Email: ForestHealth@fire.ca.gov