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U.S. Forest Service updates Trinity County on projects, trails and fire readiness
Summary
Forest Service leaders briefed supervisors on multiple local projects including Barrowman and Big Ranch, trail planning on north Trinity Lake, Hayfork fuels reduction, installation of digital fire cameras and efforts to fill permanent fire-hire vacancies for fire season 2025.
Ben Sundahl, detailed district ranger for the South Fork and Trinity River Management Units, told the Trinity County Board of Supervisors on Dec. 3 that staff were progressing on landscape and community-protection projects and had recently completed tribal consultation meetings and kickoff meetings on several proposals.
Sundahl said specialists are finalizing reports on the Barrowman project and will then move work toward Junction City; the Big Ranch project has completed an initial tribal meeting and formed an interdisciplinary team. He reported that fisheries specialist material for the Hyampom project had been sent to the National Marine Fisheries Service and was expected to return with a concurrence within about 30 days before public comment.
On fuels and suppression, Sundahl said the Hayfork-area roadside fuels reductions and the Hayward timber sale in the Trinity Center area had started. He reported ongoing prescribed underburning where conditions permitted and pile burning near Mule Creek during the rainy season. He also said the Forest Service had received more than 300 applications for the women-in-wildfire training scheduled for March 2025.
Sundahl described a collaborative push on recreational trails in the northern Trinity Lake shoreline and noted staff will "ground-truth" proposed trail alignments before including them in an environmental analysis. He said special-use staff were processing renewals and name changes for private water-line permits that cross national forest lands and that digital fire camera installs were planned for spring 2025, pending tribal consultation on some camera sites.
He closed by noting an ongoing hiring push and that, if all continued as expected, the forest planned to fill its vacant fire-engine captain positions ahead of the 2025 season. Board members asked about federal budget uncertainty and whether earlier-awarded landscape grants or agreements remain secure; Sundahl said most agreements already signed are in place but one RCD agreement was on hold pending regional decisions tied to continuing resolutions at the federal level.
Ben Sundahl, Detailed District Ranger (first reference included role); Fred Perron, deputy district ranger, assisted with the update and answered questions.
