Welcome to the Coast Ridge Forest Council! We are a non-profit community forest organization of and for the coastal hills of western Sonoma County, taking an integrative approach to cooperative land management.
About us
After the Creighton Ridge fire burned 12,000 acres in 1978, the community recovered together by embarking on forest restoration and watershed enhancement programs. The Coast Ridge Forest Council (then known as the Coast Ridge Community Forest) was formed in 2007 to continue and expand these efforts in the region. Together, we are working to improve forest health, increase resiliency in the face of climate change, and reduce future impacts of wildfire in our rural communities.
Rainwater catchment installation, a grant-funded collaborative project 
Our grant-funded chipper and operators 
Community Grazing on Big Barn Meadow, Gualala Ranch 
Volunteers on a community work day 
Local contractors for our grant project on Fort Ross Road 
Fort Ross Road during shaded fuel break construction 
Local contractors for our grant project on Fort Ross Road 
Community chipper program in action on McLeod Road 
Community meeting at Bohan Ranch to discuss 2020 wildfires 
Sonoma Coast Collaborative meeting at PPI
The ever-present threat of wildfire is a major concern to our communities. Despite ongoing restoration and forest management efforts, fuel load remains excessive and at high risk of catastrophic wildfire. An association of public and private ownership, we have united on a collaborative effort to mitigate the threat of wildland fire across the region. We have teamed up with neighboring communities, CAL FIRE, and conservation organizations to begin a long-term vegetation management plan for modifying fuels on private and public lands. The group plans on using fuel modification methods including manual and mechanical fuel removal, targeted grazing and prescribed fire. These actions are aimed at not only reducing the threat of high intensity wildfire but also improving the ecological health across our collective properties.
Our fire prevention and education component builds on ongoing outreach and education activities. This program is designed to assist residents and property owners in reducing the threat of wildfire through:
–The creation of the Fort Ross Service Area Community Wildfire Prevention Plan (CWPP)
–Community workdays for roadside fuels removal
–Vegetation management
–Targeted grazing
and other fire mitigation techniques.
Taken together, these efforts are intended to reduce the probability of future fire establishment, intensity, and severity.
What We Do
The Coast Ridge Forest Council offers opportunities for involvement on a number of levels:
Grant work
We collaborate with local residents, landowners, county and state agencies to plan, apply for, and complete landscape-scale projects. We are committed to hiring locally and are proud to have been awarded over $1M in funding to carry out multiple community projects to date, including major fuel reduction on Fort Ross Road, our community chipper project, and our forthcoming Evacuation Route and Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project.
Workshops
Workshops designed to increase awareness and promote land management strategies draw on the expertise of local landowners and speakers from both public and private sectors, including conservation, forest, and fire professionals, thereby building relationships and strengthening partnerships in our effort to improve forest health.
Community Grazing
Milleflora Farm’s Community Grazing Program is run by Demetra Markis and Dan Ginsburg. We graze our community grasslands in a volunteer effort to make our landscape safer and more wildfire-resilient, because we believe that living safely in a fire ecology can’t be done without collective action. To learn more about this effort and to contribute, please visit www.milleflorafarm.com/grazing/
Grant Application Assistance
The Coast Ridge Forest Council has partnered with Cal Fire and Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) in offering grant application assistance to landowners. This service helps landowners navigate the grant application process for the California Forest Improvement Program (CFIP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) services. For more information on these programs, visit Cal Fire CFIP and NRCS EQIP.
Field Tours
These tours are designed to inform participants about practical land management practices which are currently being used in the area. They are a great opportunity to network with other landowners, foresters, land managers, and natural resource professionals.
Support
Your donations support us as we look for funding, for forest thinning, prescribed burning, grazing, water storage tanks and more. and get more done by working together. We can help local landowners by reducing fuel load, increasing rainwater storage, improving roads, and creating a healthier, more resilient environment. We have received grants for this work in the past and are currently applying for more. Join us so we can get more done by working together!
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Coast Ridge Forest Council is a 501(c)(3) registered public benefit nonprofit charitable corporation. Our EIN is 86-1349313.