The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) is seeking applications for its Wildfire Resilience and Forestry Assistance Grant to assist individual landowners with land management planning, conservation practices to enhance wildlife habitat, and practices to enhance the productivity of their forested land.
Donor Name: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE)
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 04/01/2022
Size of the Grant: $1 million – $4 million
Grant Duration: 4 years
Details:
The purpose of the grant solicitation is to meet Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force Action Plan goals by allowing a prospective grantee the ability to provide a program of financial and technical forestry assistance to nonindustrial forest landowners, where the grantee, as the supervising entity, receives the grant from CAL FIRE and provides outreach and/or technical/financial assistance to landowners in order to conduct forest restoration or management activities on their property. The grantee will be responsible for payments of financial assistance to landowners.
Projects should seek to:
- Make funding available through agreements with landowners to pay for specific, non-commercial ecological forest improvement and wildfire resilience practices.
- Provide technical assistance to promote information sharing and education on the full range of effective forest management practices and opportunities as well as forest management education and management planning.
Funding Information
Up to $10 million may be awarded through this grant solicitation. The minimum grant request should be no less than $1 million. The maximum allowable is $4 million.
Grant Period
Grant work must be completed no later than March 31, 2026.
Project Eligibility Criteria
The eligibility criteria for grants may vary and it is important that all applicants determine their eligibility prior to beginning the application process. Applicants may only submit one proposal for consideration.
To be eligible for funding under this program:
- All projects must include a justification for the grant amount requested. If applicable, the methodology must include the cost of the grant minus any income from products or other revenues received from the grant implementation. It is incumbent upon the grantee to secure needed permits and CEQA clearance. This grant opportunity will NOT fund the development of commercial timber harvest plans. Grantees will be required to notify their regional Forestry Assistance Specialist prior to the sale of forest products.
- Projects should prioritize funding forest improvement practices including but not limited to tree and brush thinning, tree release, pruning, site preparation, tree planting, follow-up work to support tree growth, and/or slash disposal. This grant opportunity will not fund prescribed fire but will fund the burning of piles for slash disposal.
- Projects proposing reforestation shall provide assurances that seed and seedling availability is adequate to meet the project goals
- All individual project applicants shall be responsible for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) using in-house staff or consulting services. Resource Conservation Districts and Counties that apply should expect to be the lead agency for compliance with CEQA. Applicants that are not permitted to act as lead agency, such as non-profits, shall explain who they expect to be the lead agency for CEQA required projects and provide supporting documentation from that entity.
- Projects may only be funded on individual nonindustrial landownerships encompassing 3 to 5000 acres of forest land. Forested lands shall be defined as having more than 10% tree canopy cover of any native tree species.
- Any practices that are required as environmental mitigation to offset another project may not be financed by this grant program including mitigation work required by the California Forest Practice Rules.
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants are limited to counties, resource conservation districts, special districts, and 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations that have the capacity to deliver a forestry-based technical and financial assistance program to non-industrial forest landowners.
For more information, visit Wildfire Resilience and Forestry Assistance Grant.
