The Northern Paiute Gidutikad Band of the Fort Bidwell Indian Community and Lomakatsi Restoration Project are collaborating on a long-term initiative to enhance forest health and wildfire resilience across tribal and ancestral lands in Modoc County. This partnership focuses on improving forest conditions, reducing hazardous fuels, and strengthening wildfire preparedness across the Tribe’s 3,500-acre Reservation and surrounding public lands.
Key efforts include updating the Tribe’s Forest Management Plan to incorporate ecological forestry practices, sustainable timber goals, wildlife habitat enhancement, and wildfire risk reduction strategies benefiting both the Reservation and the nearby town of Fort Bidwell.
During the summer, tribal corps members surveyed 2,800 acres through Lomakatsi’s Regional Indian Youth Service Corps. In the fall, tribal members received specialized training in cultural and heritage survey methods with support from tribal cultural resource specialists and Native-X, Inc. Archaeological Services. These surveys are essential prerequisites before restoration activities commence.
In September, 31 members of Lomakatsi’s inter-tribal and Rogue Valley crews completed fuels reduction work across 56 acres and treated eight miles of forest roads to improve wildfire access and facilitate future prescribed burns. Treatments involved ecological thinning, hand piling, and clearing woody shrubs.
This important work is supported by funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Indian Youth Service Corps, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, and the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, in partnership with the Modoc Resource Conservation District.
