The Climate Benefits of CAL FIRE's Forest Health Program
Restoring the health and resilience of California forests has significant, quantifiable benefits for combatting climate change.
Forests and Climate Change
Healthy forests provide many benefits, including clean air and water, essential wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities, and a range of forest products. Just as importantly, forests may also serve as a substantial carbon sink.
Carbon is stored in living trees, understory vegetation, forest soils, standing and downed dead trees, and forest floor litter. California’s forests sequester an estimated 25.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year , equivalent to nearly 7% of California's total greenhouse gas emissions reported in 2020 .
State policies such as the Climate Change Scoping Plan , Forest Carbon Plan , and Natural and Working Lands Climate Smart Strategy seek to maintain natural and working lands, including forests, as a carbon sink.
Forests Under Threat
However, California’s forests face unprecedented challenges. Curtailment of Indigenous burning and a century of fire exclusion policies, as well as timber harvesting and grazing practices that came to California with European settlers, have resulted in denser forests of trees that tend to be smaller, similar in age and size, and less adapted to wildfire. These conditions, combined with the effects of a changing climate, have left the state’s forests more vulnerable to drought, pests, disease, and catastrophic wildfire. This has put Californians’ air quality, water supply, economic well-being, and climate goals at risk.
A recent study found that wildfires from California's disastrous 2020 season released 127 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, more than twice what was emitted from the state's electricity generation that year.
CAL FIRE Forest Health
CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program is responding to the urgent need to restore the health of California’s forests and reduce wildfire risk. The program provides funding for regionally based partners and collaboratives to implement active and sustainable forest management projects. These on-the-ground efforts contribute to California’s climate goals by keeping our state’s forests – and the valuable carbon sink they provide – intact.
Before and after fuels reduction treatments at Camp Butano Creek as part of the San Mateo County Forest Health Project
Projects funded by the Forest Health program include: • Forest fuels reduction • Prescribed fire • Pest management • Reforestation • Biomass utilization These projects provide a practical and relatively cost-effective way to achieve long-term emissions reductions. Reforestation projects enhance carbon sequestration in forests and soils, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Fuels reduction and prescribed fire projects often produce emissions in the short term, but they contribute to more secure carbon sinks in the long run, as healthier forests are less vulnerable to competition, pests, disease, or severe wildfire.
Further emissions reduction benefits can be achieved if the removed biomass is used for energy as an alternative to fossil fuels or for producing wood products.
Emissions Reductions
CAL FIRE's Forest Health Program is part of California Climate Investments , a statewide program administered by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Agencies administering California Climate Investments programs are responsible for demonstrating how expenditures facilitate greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
CAL FIRE staff calculate the expected net greenhouse gas benefit of Forest Health projects using a Quantification Methodology developed with CARB. These calculations estimate the overall impact that projects are predicted to have on carbon storage and emissions, typically over a 60- to 80-year span, considering future vegetation growth and avoided wildfire emissions.
While some fuels reduction treatments result in immediate carbon emissions when small-stemmed trees and other vegetation are removed from the forest, the increased space and reduced competition enables the remaining vegetation to be more resistant to wildfire and sequester even greater amounts of carbon in the long-term.
Thinning treatments result in reduced post-wildfire tree mortality in the treated stand, maintaining more carbon on the landscape.
CAL FIRE staff estimate that the 137 Forest Health projects funded through the end of 2024 – an investment of approximately $633 million in CCI and General Fund dollars – will result in a reduction of 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over the course of the projects’ lifetimes, or approximately 60 years.
Forest Health projects make up many of California Climate Investments' "Sustainable Forests" projects. While emission reduction estimates haven’t been compiled for all California Climate Investments projects, reported calculations to date highlight the significant expected contribution of Sustainable Forests projects in achieving the program's overall greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
Project Spotlights
Southern Sierra All-Lands Restoration and Recovery Mariposa County Project
Mariposa County is near the epicenter of the unprecedented Sierra Nevada tree mortality event. The high tree mortality density and fuel loading on the land put the area at high risk for catastrophic fire.
A $2 million Forest Health grant has allowed the Mariposa Resource Conservation District, working with Mariposa County and Yosemite National Park, to implement a balanced application of fuels reduction, biomass utilization, and reforestation.
Project activities have reduced fuel loads in wildland-urban interface and across the landscape, creating opportunities to conduct prescribed fires to reduce threats from megafires. The biomass removed from the project sites have been used to create biomass energy for use by local communities.
These activities will increase forest carbon sequestration and enhance long-term carbon stability, ultimately producing a net greenhouse gas benefit of nearly 39,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Scott Valley/Etna Fuel Reduction and Forest Resiliency Project
The communities of Etna and Scott Valley are vulnerable to large wildfires and have been threatened several times in recent years. Ecotrust Forest Management received a $3.4 million Forest Health grant to reduce fuels across more than 1,000 acres surrounding the towns and to reforest lands burned by recent wildfires. Biomass removed as fuels reduction is being sold to a local biomass facility, producing revenue that has been reinvested into the project to treat more acreage.
The project is contributing to more resilient forest stands, which will protect local communities, improve ecological health, and ensure continued forest productivity.
The project is also resulting in significant climate benefits. The carbon sequestration from reforestation, reduced likelihood of emissions from catastrophic wildfire, and utilization of biomass from fuels reduction are estimated to produce a net greenhouse gas benefit of more than 280,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over the life of the project.
Saving San Diego's Last Mixed Conifer Forest
Palomar Mountain is one of San Diego County’s last mixed conifer forest landscapes. This dense conifer forest frequently faces severe drought and is vulnerable to wildfire, threats which are magnified by tree mortalities from Goldspotted Oak Borer. A partnership led by the San Diego Fire Safe Council received a $5 million Forest Health grant to implement a fuels reduction, pest management, and forest restoration project across public, tribal, and private lands in an effort to prevent a catastrophic loss of this forest habitat.
Project partners include the local Resource Conservation District, Pauma Band of Luiseño Mission Indians, La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians, US Forest Service, California Institute of Technology, and private landowners.
Project treatments are intended to benefit the California spotted owl, a species of special concern, by reducing wildfire risk. Project partners will monitor the project’s effects on owl habitat to improve understanding of the species’ current and future status on Palomar Mountain.
Improved wildfire resiliency and reforestation of previously burned areas will result in an estimated net greenhouse gas benefit of more than 60,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over the life of the project.
Learn More
The Forest Health program advances state goals for forest resilience, reducing catastrophic wildfire, and carbon sequestration while also providing community protection, watershed health, wildlife habitat, and economic benefits. To learn more about the program and upcoming grant opportunities, visit:
