Mono County and regional partners will receive about $4,650,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to expand hazardous-fuels removal and community wildfire-defense work across 34 communities in the Eastern Sierra.

The award, announced to the Board of Supervisors by Mono County wildfire mitigation coordinator Wendy Kraszewski, will be administered through the Eastern Sierra Council of Governments and cover five years of on-the-ground work, equipment purchases and workforce-development activities.

Kraszewski told the board the grant will put “the vast majority” of funds toward hazardous-fuels removal and will also pay for home ignition-zone assessments, community clean-up events, chippers and dumpsters, burn equipment and workforce programs designed to create sustainable local crews. “The communities have informed everything,” Kraszewski said, noting the grant proposals were aligned with the counties’ community wildfire protection plans.

The program — named in the county presentation the Eastern Sierra Communities Wildfire Defense Program — includes deliverables that Kraszewski listed for supervisors: removal of roughly 9,500 tons of hazardous fuels, completion of 1,250 home ignition-zone assessments, and at least 340 community cleanup events over the five-year period. The award also funds two 15-inch chippers, roll-off dumpsters, commercial chipper rentals for high-intensity workdays, compost containment pads and funding to offset waste disposal costs for community cleanups.

Grant administrators plan to engage local partners including county public works, local fire departments, Firewise groups, tribal crews and the Eastern Sierra Wildfire Alliance. Kraszewski said public-works staff and county partners were written into the proposal to ensure local capacity and implementation.

The grant also includes a workforce-development component that Kraszewski described as a bid to establish a pipeline of trained local workers who can sustain fuels-reduction work after grant funding ends. She said the program will coordinate with Eastern Sierra College workforce programs and tribal crews to provide training and employment pathways.

Kristen Feiler, Inyo County’s wildfire coordinator, said a sub-award agreement and administrative steps remain; she told the board the counties expect final agreements and initial activity scheduling within roughly a month, and that implementation activity would likely begin in earnest after the start of the new year.

Kraszewski and Feiler said the approach emphasizes coordination with towns, the Eastern Sierra Wildfire Alliance and other collaborators to create a “closed-loop” program that both removes fuels and provides ways to process biomass material locally.

The board did not take formal action; staff said they will return with more detailed implementation plans, including timelines, community engagement steps and subaward paperwork.

Looking ahead, county and regional staff said they will present more detailed budgets and schedules to supervisors, and that community meetings and coordinated outreach will begin as planning and contracting steps are completed. Kraszewski said the award reflects several years of grant work and local capacity-building and that she expects a steady cadence of community events and fuels-reduction work once the sub-award and implementation plans are finalized.