Fire Risk Reduction

Over a 4.5-year period, funds are being used to reduce wildfire risk on the Santa Lucia Preserve by treating fine fuels, dense monotypic invasive vegetation, and ladder fuels across grassland and oak savannah.

The Resource Conservation District of Monterey County (RCDMC), in partnership with the Elkhorn Slough Foundation (ESF) is leading two coordinated wildfire-risk reduction efforts in northern Monterey County.

The project will reduce hazardous fuel loads at Mitteldorf Preserve, a property of Big Sur Land Trust (BSLT), using low-impact forest management practices such as chipping, burn piling, lop-and-scatter, and mastication across 60 acres of old-growth redwood and transition habitat.

This project will implement “good fire” and integrate Indigenous knowledge across several burns on four properties in Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties — Basin Ranch, Glen Deven Ranch, Mitteldorf Preserve, and Mt. Madonna Center — in partnership with the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County (ETMC), Big Sur Land Trust (BSLT), Resource Conservation District of Monterey County (RCDMC), and Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association (CCPBA).

San Vicente Redwoods, a 9,000-acre protected area in the Santa Cruz Mountains, was heavily impacted by the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire.