Volunteers needed to plant trees in burn area
CONCOW >> The Butte County Resource Conservation District is looking for volunteers to help plant oaks in the areas burned by the Camp Fire over the next couple weekends.
The group is coordinating replanting efforts not only to restore the forest, but also to choose a mix and distribution of species adapted to higher temperatures and resilient to frequent fires.
“It’s important we replant trees that have a shot with the climate that we’ll have in the future,” said Wolfy Rougle at the Butte County Resource Conservation District. “The forest people will remember from their childhoods as 80 percent pines and 20 percent oak will change. It may be switched.”
The project will kick off on Sunday, Feb. 2 in Concow, whose pine forest has been turned mostly into shrub-land by repeat, intense fires. The goal is to plant 400 native, fire-resilient black oaks on Granite Ridge. Volunteers will meet at 9:30 a.m. at Highway
70 and Concow Road. The planting is scheduled to wrap up by 12:30 p.m.
Rougle said she needed more volunteers for the next weekend’s planting effort, which will take place in Paradise on Saturday, Feb. 8. There are two shifts in two different locations. In the morning, volunteers will meet at 9 a.m. at 2902 Neal Road to plant 400 blue oaks in the southern Paradise ridge. In the afternoon, volunteers will meet at 1 p.m. at the parking lot at 6848 Skyway to plant 200 black oaks at different sites in Paradise and Magalia.
People can sign up via the Butte County Resource Conservation District Facebook
page or by emailing shepard@bcrcd.org. All are welcome, but people under the age of 18 should be accompanied by a guardian.
Other planting days will be posted on the District’s Facebook page.