North Yuba Forest Partnership advances wildfire risk reduction near Camptonville

The North Yuba Forest Partnership, nine organizations committed to collaboratively planning, funding and implementing forest restoration across the North Yuba River watershed, announced today that wildfire risk reduction treatments will begin near the community of Camptonville and New Bullards Bar Reservoir. Following the Tahoe National Forest’s signing of the Record of Decision for Subproject Area #2 of the North Yuba Landscape Resilience Project (NYLRP), implementation is now cleared to begin within this priority area. 

The NYLRP spans 275,000 acres and represents one of the largest landscape-scale vegetation and fuels management efforts in the Sierra Nevada. The project is designed to: 

• Reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire 

• Create fire-adapted communities 

• Improve forest health 

• Promote mature and old-growth forest characteristics that are resilient to fire, drought, insects and disease 

The NYLRP is being implemented in several phases through a staged-decision approach, allowing flexibility to adjust treatments based on field conditions and monitoring, while meeting the project’s landscape-scale goals. 

• Phase One (Subproject Area #1) – A Record of Decision was issued in July 2023, authorizing treatment of approximately 32,000 acres. 

• Phase Two (Subproject Area #2) – The most recent Record of Decision clears treatments across approximately 29,000 acres near Camptonville and New Bullards Bar Reservoir. 

These phases prioritize the most critical areas first, including at-risk communities, emergency response and evacuation routes and wildfire spread mitigation zones. 

Project planning began in 2018, with implementation expected to continue over 15 to 20 years. The effort is informed by collaboration among the nine organizations that make up the North Yuba Forest Partnership, working together to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health throughout the North Yuba River watershed. 

The North Yuba Forest Partnership is made up of the U.S. Forest Service - Tahoe National Forest, South Yuba River Citizens League, The Nature Conservancy, Yuba Water Agency, Camptonville Community Partnership, Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe, National Forest Foundation, Sierra County and Blue Forest. Partners are utilizing ecologically-based techniques such as fuels reduction, forest density thinning and prescribed fire to restore resilience to this critically important landscape.