Airborne re-seeding continuing throughout Lassen and Plumas areas damaged by last year’s Beckwourth Complex wildfire
Bureau of Land Management staff from the agency’s Eagle Lake Field Office last week began a re-seeding project aimed at dropping tons of shrub and grass seed on rugged, inaccessible wildlife habitat areas that were destroyed in last summer’s Beckwourth Complex wildfire. The massive wildfire, which was the result of two earlier lightning-caused fires that eventually merged, burned for several months throughout Plumas and Lassen counties.
With help from a contracted pilot, more than nine tons of seedlings were dropped last week on the hillsides above the small Lassen County community of Doyle, and BLM officials have said the re-seeding project will be continuing with the agency’s next step focusing on re-seeding the high desert lands between Susanville and Sierra County.
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The Beckwourth Complex wildfire was the merger of two lightning-ignited fires that burned in the Plumas National Forest in Plumas and Lassen counties from late June until late September of last year. The two major fires of the complex, the Dotta and Sugar fires, impacted national forest lands, public rangelands and private property.
The blaze, which was the largest California wildfire of the 2021 fire season, collectively burned 105,670 acres and destroyed nearly 150 homes; 33 of which had been in Doyle, where this week’s re-seeding efforts were focused.
BLM officials say the re-seeding efforts thus far focused on more than 2,300 acres of wildland, which is just under half of the BLM-managed lands impacted by the months-long blaze.
“Mule deer will benefit from the regrowth of the antelope bitterbrush and native grasses that were seeded,” BLM said in a Feb. 16 social media release.
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“Next, the staff will work on planting seedlings of Lassen County bitterbrush, a species endemic to the high desert lands between Susanville and Sierra County,” they continued.
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Trevor Montgomery, 50, moved in 2017 to the Intermountain area of Shasta County from Riverside County and runs Riverside County News Source (RCNS) and Shasta County News Source (SCNS).
Additionally, he writes or has written for several other news organizations; including Riverside County based newspapers Valley News, Valley Chronicle, Anza Valley Outlook, and Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle; the Bonsall/Fallbrook Village News in San Diego County; and Mountain Echo in Shasta County. He is also a regular contributor to Thin Blue Line TV and Law Enforcement News Network and has had his stories featured on news stations throughout the Southern California and North State regions.
Trevor spent 10 years in the U.S. Army as an Orthopedic Specialist before joining the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department in 1998. He was medically retired after losing his leg, breaking his back, and suffering both spinal cord and brain injuries in an off-duty accident. (Click here to see segment of Discovery Channel documentary of Trevor’s accident.)
During his time with the sheriff’s department, Trevor worked at several different stations; including Robert Presley Detention Center, Southwest Station in Temecula, Hemet/Valle Vista Station, Ben Clark Public Safety Training Center, and Lake Elsinore Station; along with other locations.
Trevor’s assignments included Corrections, Patrol, DUI Enforcement, Boat and Personal Water-Craft based Lake Patrol, Off-Road Vehicle Enforcement, Problem Oriented Policing Team, and Personnel/Background Investigations. He finished his career while working as a Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Investigator and was a court-designated expert in child abuse and child sex-related crimes.
Trevor has been married for more than 30 years and was a foster parent to more than 60 children over 13 years. He is now an adoptive parent and his “fluid family” includes 13 children and 18 grandchildren.