Calpine Fire

The Calpine fire burned very close to the Sierra County community of Calpine on Saturday, June 23, 2007.  The national forest lands adjacent to Calpine had been thinned in 1995 as part of a fuelbreak around the community.  The Calpine Community Defense Zone was one of the first projects conducted as a result of the Quincy Library Group's efforts.  The Toro Project resulted in about 810 acres of additional thinning just to the north of Calpine as a Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Forest Recovery Act project.

In November of 1994 the Forest Service announced a supplemental allocation of one million dollars to the Lassen National Forest, the Plumas National Forest, and the Sierraville Ranger District of the Tahoe National Forest.  This allocation and the projects that resulted were collectively known as the "million dollar project".  The million dollar allocation was one of the first indications that the Forest Service could adopt the QLG vision, however it wasn't without important dialogue to better understand the QLG's Community Stability Proposal. More

The Calpine Community Defense Zone (CDZ) included 146 acres of biomass thinning at a cost of $40,150 ($275 per acre).   The project also provided 204,000 board feet of sawlogs and the equivalent of 21,000 board feet of chipped biomass.  Since the Calpine CDZ was created it has been maintained with prescribed fire once.

It is important to note that the source of the Calpine fire was a burn pile developed as fuel management following the Toro project that was thinned in 2005 and located adjacent to the Calpine CDZ.