McBride Timber Sales to Resume
The Shasta-McCloud Management Unit, of the Shasta-Trinity NF, is announcing that timber harvest operations have begun on two plantation thinning contracts located north of the town of Mount Shasta off the Everitt Memorial Highway.
The timber sales were planned under the McBride Plantations Project CE, signed in 2018. These timber sales have not operated since 2020 and 2021, respectively. The project was planned as a fuels-reduction/forest health project designed to reduce the risk of fire and improve the health and vigor of the timber stands in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) around the community of Mount Shasta. The project also lies within a designated high-risk fireshed, which is defined as an area at the highest risk of community exposure to wildfire. The 2022 USDA Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy has placed an emphasis on hazardous fuel reduction projects, with a priority focus on areas within high-risk firesheds.
At this time, the logging activities will be occurring in the plantations west and north of the Everitt Memorial Highway (A10). Residents and visitors to the Shasta-Trinity NF should be on the lookout for heavy equipment working in the area, tree falling hazards, and increased truck traffic from both log trucks and chip vans. Hikers should be aware of logging activities that may occur on/adjacent to roads. After initial logging is completed, there will be follow-up chipping operations as well as brush mastication and prescribed fire treatments over some of the area. To provide for public safety, it is recommended that visitors curtail recreational activities in the area while harvest operations are occurring. It is anticipated that operations will be occurring for the remainder of the winter and into spring.
For more information, contact District Ranger Carolyn Napper at the Mt. Shasta Ranger Station at 926-4511.
