CAL FIRE’s Wood Products and Bioenergy Program provides grant opportunities to strengthen California’s forest-sector businesses and workforce while promoting healthy, resilient forests statewide.
Donor Name: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE)
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 05/20/2026
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
The Wood Products and Bioenergy Team (Wood Products) is part of CAL FIRE’s Climate and Energy Program. Wood Products awards funding for California business and workforce development projects that support healthy resilient forests and the people and ecosystems that depend on them. Wood Products has three primary areas of responsibility, including existing and emerging technologies:
- Business Development, including solid wood and biomass processing and manufacturing, in-woods operations, and tree nurseries.
- Bioenergy Business and Workforce Development, including forest bio-material power generation and biofuels for domestic use and export.
- Forest-related Workforce Development, including in-woods, transportation, and manufacturing.
These grants support a variety of projects that enhance industry operations, develop workforce skills, and foster innovation in the forest sector.
CAL FIRE Wood Products supports the creation of a robust and diversified wood products industry to facilitate the economic and sustainable management of California’s forests. Grants can make California a more competitive place to conduct forest-sector business. Grants will also create financial incentives for industries to invest in clean technologies, develop innovative ways to process wood products, and support the growth of a strong forest-sector workforce.
Funding Information
- Minimum Award: $10,000
- Maximum Award: $3,000,000
Eligibility Activities
- Eligible activities shall further the goals of the California Forest Carbon Plan, California’s Natural and Working Lands Implementation Plan, California’s Wildfire & Forest Resilience Action Plan, California’s Strategic Plan for Expanding the Use of Beneficial Fire, California’s Nature-Based Solutions Climate Targets and AB 32 Climate Change Scoping Plan.
- This grant program supports increasing the pace and scale of forest fuels management by expanding capacities of businesses that work in removing and utilizing forest fuels, fire reintroduction, and reforestation of forests degraded by overcrowding, drought, pest infestation, and catastrophic fire. Grant projects should, either directly or indirectly, facilitate greenhouse gas emission reductions and further the purposes of AB 32 and related statutes, or contribute to other goals.
- Two project types are eligible for grant funding: business development and workforce development in California. Projects may include planning, organizational and business capacity building, and workforce and infrastructure development as components of proposed projects.
Eligibility Criteria
Business Development Business development proposals submitted by an organization whose operations have the potential to support forest restoration and/or wood products infrastructure in California will be considered.
Eligible business development project applicants include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Academic institutions
- Local agencies, including counties, cities, and special districts
- State agencies
- Federal agencies
- Native American tribes
- Non-profit organizations
- Private entities including businesses, foundations or others not listed above
Furthermore, business development project applicants should be involved in at least one of the following business endeavors:
- Primary wood processing for wholesale and retail markets.
- Tree nursery capacity/facilities improvement.
- Seedlings must be made available for sale to private California landowners, though some seedlings can be for other entities with reforestation projects in the state.
- Chip processing.
- Forest operations, forestry, or other forest-industry support services.
- Wood utilization and/or marketing.
- Secondary wood processing that creates demand pull for California primary wood processing.
- Fuels treatments, commercial logging, forested right-of-way clearing.
- Bioenergy facility development or enhancement (e.g., fuels, gasification, pyrolysis, thermal, power, and/or advanced energy production) that uses forest biomass as feedstock.
- Forest biomass transportation, feedstock sorting, and/or aggregation from various sources
For more information, visit CAL FIRE.
