Category Archives: California

Bureau of Land Management, California, U.S. Forest Service

One Dollar, One Tree: BLM Cuts Permits to $1 for Trees and Firewood

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Bureau of Land Management opens cutting areas and drops personal-use permits to $1 to deliver holiday savings and reduce hazardous fuels.

Across BLM public lands this winter, the Interior Department has turned a holiday chore into a practical win. The Bureau of Land Management’s “One Dollar, One Tree“ action makes gathering a Christmas tree or personal-use firewood inexpensive while directing work into overstocked stands that need thinning.

Effective immediately for the 2025–2026 winter season, the BLM has cut personal-use permits for Christmas trees and firewood to $1 per tree or per cord through January 31, 2026. The agency is opening new cutting areas in overstocked woodlands, with priority given to locations near communities, military bases, tribal areas, and rural counties. Household limits are raised in many places — up to 10 cords of firewood and up to three Christmas trees — and caps can be relaxed where resources allow. The department projects the combined programs will deliver nearly $10 million in holiday savings to families while helping reduce hazardous fuels on public lands. Continue reading →

Activities, California, Hikes, National Parks

100th Annual Trek to the Nation’s Christmas Tree

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell
This month, Grant Grove in Kings Canyon will host the 100th Annual Trek to the Nation’s Christmas Tree. On December 14, assembling at 2 p.m. with the official ceremony beginning at 2:30 p.m. The event honors the General Grant Tree, the long-lived, enormous, and officially recognized “Nation’s Christmas Tree.” December 14 is also a free entrance day at Sequoia and Kings Canyon, so Grant Grove will see heavier foot traffic and limited parking. 
 
The General Grant Tree stands roughly 268 feet tall and is among the world’s oldest living trees — an apt living symbol for a national observance. President Calvin Coolidge designated it the Nation’s Christmas Tree on April 28, 1926. Congress later named it a National Shrine under Public Law 441 on March 29, 1956, and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz dedicated the tree on November 11, 1956, as a perpetual shrine honoring the nation’s armed forces. Those layers of designation give the site ecological, historical, and commemorative weight.

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California, National Parks, News, Outdoors

Lake Manly Returns — Record Fall Rain Shuts Roads in Death Valley

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

A string of storms this fall left Death Valley doing what it rarely does: collecting rainwater.

The National Weather Service says this was the wettest fall on record for the park — September through November totaled 2.41 inches — and November itself set a new mark at 1.76 inches, topping the old November record of 1.70 inches from 1923. That’s more rain than the valley typically sees in a year, and at Badwater Basin — 282 feet below sea level — the runoff pooled into a shallow, walkable lake people are calling Lake Manly. It’s small and shoe-top shallow in most spots, much less dramatic than the lake that followed Hurricane Hilary in 2024, and it sits about a mile from the Badwater parking lot. The storms hit hard: sections of pavement were buried or scoured away after the November 15 storm, and more rain on November 18 produced additional flooding and closures.

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News, State Parks, Wildfire

Burning to Protect: How Pile Burns Reduce Wildfire Risk in California

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

California State Parks’ Program, Coordinated with CalFire — Recent Operations Focused in the Santa Cruz Mountains

California State Parks crews are continuing to conduct pile-burning work across the state. The most recent announcement is that they are targeting the Santa Cruz Mountains with pile burns planned across Big Basin Redwoods, Castle Rock, and Henry Cowell (including the Fall Creek unit). Operations are planned, as weather and air-quality windows allow, through April 2026. This is hands-on fuel reduction; not spectacle, not a shortcut, but a deliberate effort to remove the dry wood and brush fuel that can turn a lightning strike or a stray ember into a catastrophic, large-scale, landscape-devouring wildfire.

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Activities, Bureau of Land Management, Cal Fire, California, News

BLM Lifts Seasonal Fire and Shooting Restrictions in Southern California

Posted on by Shawn E. Bell

Year-Round Rules Still Apply

On October 30 the Bureau of Land Management lifted seasonal fire restrictions on BLM-managed public lands in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Imperial, southern Inyo, eastern Mono, San Diego, and eastern Kern counties. Campfires, barbecues, and gas stoves are allowed again on those BLM lands — but only with a valid California campfire permit. Permits are required outside developed campgrounds and are available for free at readyforwildfire.org or at any BLM, Forest Service, or CAL FIRE office.
 

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