Map of Shasta Trinity National Forest Districts

Protect Trinity National Forests & Save the South Fork Management Unit!

We, the undersigned, care deeply about the management of the National Forests in Trinity County. We recognize that having a well-staffed, local Forest Service presence leads to better forest management and better protects our communities from catastrophic fire. We are strongly opposed to any efforts to reduce the Forest Service presence in Trinity County. We are therefore dismayed to learn that the Forest Service will not be filling the District Ranger Position in Hayfork, California, a position that has been held continuously since 1908. We are also opposed to efforts to relocate many new positions to Redding, more than an hour from the land that these positions will manage.

The 2.1 million-acre Shasta Trinity National Forest is the largest national forest in California and made up of four management units, with one District Ranger at the helm of each management unit. Previously, the District Ranger in Hayfork supervised the South Fork Management Unit, while the District Ranger in Weaverville supervised the Trinity River Management Unit. With the departure of the district ranger in Hayfork, the Shasta-Trinity National Forest has decided not to fill that position, placing the South Fork Management Unit and the Trinity River Management Unit under one District Ranger in Weaverville.  These two management units combined are over a million acres in size and contain the following communities:

Coffee Creek
Trinity Center
Weaverville
Douglas City
Lewiston
Junction City
Big Bar
Burnt Ranch
Denny
Hyampom
Hayfork
Wildwood
Platina (in Shasta County)
Post Mountain
Peanut
Forest Glen

For context, the entire Six Rivers National Forest, which borders the Shasta-Trinity National Forest to the west, is less than one million acres, but is managed by three District Rangers and one Deputy Ranger.

We believe that losing a District Ranger from Trinity County will harm the county because a District Ranger is the primary individual responsible for all forest management concerns.  This includes firefighting, recreation, wildlife conservation, logging, and the creation and maintenance of fuel breaks. If the Hayfork district ranger position is permanently eliminated, the citizens of Hayfork and other Southern Trinity County communities will not have a local ranger to reach out to. These communities, which are poor and increasingly made up of non-white, non-native-English speakers, will have to reach out to the District Ranger in Weaverville, a 45-minute drive from the Hayfork office. At the same time, citizens of Weaverville will have to share the Weaverville district ranger’s ear with the citizens of southern Trinity County.

The Forest Leadership Team (FLT) of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest is the group that makes decisions about the work that gets done on the National Forest. The FLT is made up of District Rangers, who represent the interests of their assigned area, and Staff Officers, who represent the interests of the entire National Forest. If the Hayfork District Ranger position is permanently eliminated, there will only be one voice on the Leadership Team representing the interests of Trinity County. This will hurt both the Trinity River Management Unit and the South Fork Management Unit.  All Trinity County citizens will have less of a voice when it comes to the management of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

If, as is currently planned, more individuals responsible for managing Forest Lands in Trinity County are relocated to Redding, these individuals will spend 2 or more hours “on the clock” driving to and from the lands they manage. They will be less likely to live in Trinity County, will have less of an understanding of local issues, and will contribute less to the local economy and tax base.

For these reasons, we call on the Forest Service to reaffirm its commitment to Trinity County by:

• Appointing a District Ranger to work out of Hayfork, who will be responsible for only the South Fork Management Unit.
• Setting the duty location (home office) of Trinity County for all positions that are primarily responsible for forest management in Trinity County.