Clearing Trails Damaged by State’s Million Acre Wildfire

foreground features fire damaged tree fallen over a trail, while ccc corpsmembers work on another tree in the deep background

Ukiah Center Corpsmembers and their crew supervisor work along damaged trails in the Mendocino National Forest. Debris left behind from the August Complex fire is being cleaned up to restore trails and camping areas.

It’s as if there is something sacred about this work. No power tools. No heavy equipment. Everything is done by hand. Nothing that would create so much as a spark.

“I like to think that we’re giving the trail a makeover,” said CCC Ukiah Corpsmember Madison Troop.

She and a crew of Corpsmembers from the California Conservation Corps are undoing some of the damage the August Complex Fire did a year ago to Mendocino’s hiking trails.

“If there’s a downed log in the trail we have to move it,” said Ukiah Corpsmember Lane Hengel. “I cut a tree by hand with a hand saw the other day. It’s awesome, but it was a lot of work. It took me about ten minutes to get through a log about three feet thick.”

Ukiah Corpsmember Madison Troop uses a hand saw for the final cuts of a fire damaged tree along Lower Nye Trail.

The flames of the August Complex fire downed and weakened trees. The series of lightning sparked fires ignited August 17, 2020 and burned for four months. Many of the fire damaged trees have fallen across the trails, which is where Ukiah Center Corpsmembers are putting in the most work as they remove these hazards by hand.

And it’s not just fire damage that needs undoing. The closing of these wilderness trails for the past year, allowed for brush and vegetation to become overgrown and takeover.

“We’re clearing the trails six feet in width,” said Troop. “If there’s something hanging over the trail, we’re pulling it down. On some of the trails we’ve worked on there was so much brush you didn’t even know it was a trail.”

Troop and Hengel are among 15 Corpsmembers tasked with the hands-on work. Wilderness rules and the risk of sparks requires the crew to only use hand tools. No motorized equipment is used. Instead, teams of Corpsmembers are using two-person crosscut saws to clear the way for future hikers, horses, or even vehicles.

“Trail building and maintenance, as well as wildland fire recovery, is what we do best,” said CCC Director Bruce Saito. “Our Corpsmembers get hands-on experience that can lead them to careers in our forests and parks. They also get the added benefit of improving and positively impacting their local communities and state with projects like this.”

Corpsmembers in full PPE use two-man crosscut saw to cut downed tree

Ukiah Corpsmember Lane Hengel, right, works with his partner on a two-person crosscut saw to remove a downed tree from a trail.

Corpsmembers from the CCC’s Ukiah Center recently concluded several weeks in the Lower Nye Valley area near Lake Pillsbury. The crew camped near the project site for eight straight days to better access the damaged trails. The scenery provided a great experience for Corpsmembers as they hauled themselves and their hand tools throughout the wilderness.

“We’re hiking every day,” Hengel said. “The last trail we worked on we did about 24 miles of hiking over the week. It’s been really fun.”

The 18 to 25-year-olds, and U.S. military veterans through age 29, who enroll in the CCC embrace the motto of “Hard Work, Low Pay, Miserable Conditions, and More!” Hengel and Troop both know that a year doing project work like this, especially in miserable conditions, can help lead to skills and careers in wildland firefighting, forestry, and more.

scenic photo of a damaged, dead tree covered trail

While some vegetation has returned, the damage caused by the August Complex Fire is evident across the Mendocino National Forest. The downed tree shows exactly why trails and campgrounds remain closed to the public.