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33-1180: The Mendocino National Forest is located in the Coastal Mountain Range in northwestern California and comprises 913,306 acres (3,696.02 km). It is the only national forest in the state of California without a major paved road entering it. There are a variety of recreational opportunities — camping , hiking , mountain biking, paragliding, backpacking, boating, fishing, hunting, nature study, photography , and off-highway vehicle travel. The forest lies in parts of six counties. In descending order of forestland area they are Lake , Glenn , Mendocino , Tehama , Trinity , and Colusa counties. Forest headquarters are located in Willows, California . There are local ranger district offices in Covelo , Upper Lake , and Stonyford. The forest includes four wilderness areas : The Sanhedrin and Yuki wildernesses were signed into law on October 17, 2006. This legislation, entitled " Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act ", added areas to both

66-757: A predominantly Mediterranean climate , and are primarily within the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion . However, the moister areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains lie within the Northern California coastal forests ecoregion, characterized by forests of Coast redwood . Isolated groves of Coast redwoods are also found in the Big Sur region of the Santa Lucia Range, making them the southernmost natural occurrences of

99-772: A transform fault system. During 1877, these deposits hit their peak production of mercury, producing approximately 2,776 metric tons (3,060 short tons). These abandoned mines are still a source of mine waste runoff in Cache Creek and other downstream bodies of water. The Northern Coast Ranges are a section of the California Coast Ranges. They run parallel to the Pacific Coast from the North San Francisco Bay Area to coastal Del Norte County . The Klamath Mountains , including

132-564: Is 35 acres (140,000 m) in size and has hiking trails, campgrounds and is close to trailheads into Snow Mountain Wilderness. Other lakes include Plaskett Lakes in the middle of the forest, Howard , Hammerhorn, Square and Long Lakes near Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness in the northern portion. In 1905 the first surveys of public domain lands were conducted by Professor Lachie of the University of California, Berkeley, working under

165-471: The California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion, home to a number of plant communities including: mixed evergreen forest ; oak woodland ; and Interior chaparral and woodland . A major specific plant community of the inner ranges is Mediterranean California Lower Montane Black Oak-Conifer Forest , which supports particularly high biodiversity within the California Coast Ranges, including the nominate California Black Oak . Columbian Black-tailed Deer are

198-965: The East San Francisco Bay Area , and run south into Santa Barbara County . The Transverse Ranges lie to the south. The San Joaquin Valley is on the east, and Pacific Ocean on the west. The Southern Coast Ranges include the Berkeley Hills , the Diablo Range , the Santa Cruz Mountains , the Gabilan Range , the Santa Lucia Range and Sierra de Salinas , the Temblor Range , and the Sierra Madre . There are Outer Southern Coast Ranges along

231-713: The King Range , which meet the sea in the " Lost Coast " region. The southernmost peak of the Northern Coast Ranges is Mount Tamalpais . The highest point in the Northern Coast Ranges is Mount Linn , at 8,098 ft. (2,468 m). The Northern Coast Ranges consist of two main parallel belts of mountains, the Outer Northern Coast Ranges lying along the coast, and the Inner Northern Coast Ranges running inland to

264-567: The Mendocino Complex Fire burned approximately 284,000 acres (1,150 km) in the southern portion of the forest, or around one-third of the forest's total area. One firefighter was killed by falling debris near Lake Pillsbury on August 13. The burned area included the entire Snow Mountain Wilderness. Originating as 38 separate fires started by lightning on August 16 and 17, 2020, the August Complex Fire became

297-705: The Siskiyou Mountains sub-range, lie to the north and northeast. The Southern Coast Ranges lie to the south. The Northern Coast Ranges run north–south parallel to the coast. Component ranges within the Northern Coast Ranges include the Mendocino Range of western Mendocino County and the Mayacamas , Sonoma , and Vaca Mountains and the Marin Hills of the North Bay . They also include

330-587: The Spanish word chaparro , applied to California scrub oaks and Coastal scrub oaks . Common tree species of oak woodlands include oaks, California bay , and buckeye . Riparian species of the coast ranges include sycamore , white alder , willows , and bigleaf maple . Columbian Black-tailed deer occupy the northern and more coastal portions of the Southern Coast Ranges, and California mule deer occupy inland and southernmost portions of

363-692: The Transverse Ranges , Peninsular Ranges and the Klamath Mountains . Physiographically , they are a section of the larger Pacific Border province , which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division. UNESCO has included the " California Coast Ranges Biosphere Reserve " in its Man and the Biosphere Programme of World Network of Biosphere Reserves since 1983. The northern end of

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396-589: The California Coast Ranges overlap the southern end of the Klamath Mountains for approximately 80 miles (130 km) on the west. They extend southward for more than 60 miles (97 km) to where the coastline turns eastward along the Santa Barbara Channel , around the area of Point Conception . Here the southern end meets the Los Angeles Transverse Ranges , or Sierras de los Angeles . The rocks themselves that comprise

429-550: The Lake Pillsbury Basin in the late 1970s by the California Department of Fish and Game , and the herd has steadily grown, numbering around 80 in 2007. The elk live on the north shore of the lake at the bottom of Hull Mountain, and enjoy wild clovers and grasses, along with the green summer and fall foliage around Lake Pillsbury's edges. Mendocino National Forest and Los Padres National Forest are

462-673: The Pacific Ocean on the west, and Inner Southern Coast Ranges to the east, inland to the San Joaquin Valley . The central and southern San Francisco Bay and the Salinas Valley lie between them. The highest point of the Southern Coast Ranges is Junipero Serra Peak in the Santa Lucia Range, at 5,862 feet (1,787 m). Other peaks include Mount Diablo at 3,849 feet (1,173 m), and Mount Hamilton at 4,196 feet (1,279 m). The Southern Coast Ranges have

495-416: The Southern Coast Ranges. Rattlesnake Fire The arsonist, Stanford Pattan, started two fires , one on private land and the other along Alder Springs Road inside the national forest boundary. He was later convicted and sentenced on two counts of arson. The first fire was quickly suppressed by responding firefighters. The second fire continued burning uphill in what is known as Rattlesnake Canyon; it

528-606: The Yolla Bolly - Middle Eel Wilderness and Snow Mountain Wilderness, and established the two new wilderness areas in the Mendocino National Forest. Rivers include: Eel River , Rice Fork Eel River, Middle Fork Eel River , Black Butte River , and Stony Creek (Sacramento River) . Lake Pillsbury is the largest recreational lake in the forest at 2,280 acres (9.2 km) and offers boat ramps, camping and resorts. Letts Lake, southeast of Lake Pillsbury

561-685: The direction of Gifford Pinchot , Chief of the United States Forest Service , to determine what land should be included in a forest reserve. In 1905 the U.S. Congress moved the reserves from the General Land Office in the Department of the Interior to the new Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture. The Division of Forestry became the U.S. Forest Service. President Theodore Roosevelt set aside

594-655: The east. They are separated by a long system of valleys. The northern valley portion is drained by the Eel River and its tributaries, and the southern by the Russian River . A series of short rivers, including the Mattole , Gualala , and Navarro rivers, drain the western slopes of the ranges. The eastern slopes of the ranges drain into the Sacramento Valley . Clear Lake lies in the southeast portion of

627-578: The endemic Santa Lucia Fir , the rarest species of fir on earth. The California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion has a great range of plant communities in the Southern Coast Ranges, including mixed evergreen forests , oak woodland and savannas , grasslands , northern coastal scrub , and the Monterey Pine woodlands of the Monterey Peninsula and two other coastal enclaves of the Santa Lucia Range. The name " chaparral " comes from

660-726: The fire through the dense chaparral. As a consequence of the fire, there were major changes to wildland fire training, firefighting safety standards, and overall awareness of how weather affects fire behavior. The 1953 Rattlesnake Fire was one of the incidents that culminated in the 1957 Report to the Chief (the Report of the Task Force to Recommend Action to Reduce the Chances of Men Being Killed by Burning While Fighting Fire). Pattan later pleaded guilty to two counts of willful burning and

693-719: The former guard stations now being utilized as "work centers" that are primarily staffed by fire crews. Two areas managed by the Mendocino National Forest are outside the contiguous boundaries and they are the Genetic Research Center in Chico, California, and the Lake Red Bluff Recreation Area in central California. Acquired by the Forest Service in 1974, it was originally a plant breeding research and plant introduction facility that

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726-463: The largest wildfire in California history. The fire was primarily burning through the Mendocino National Forest, and grew to over 1,026,000 acres. The tule elk is one of the largest land mammals native to California, with cows weighing up to 350 pounds, and the largest bulls weighing roughly 500 pounds. Hunted to near extinction during the state's gold rush era, the animals were reintroduced to

759-635: The most widespread large mammal, after humans, of the Northern Coast Ranges. The rivers in the ranges are home to several species of salmon . The Southern Coast Ranges , of the California Coast Ranges in the Pacific Coast Ranges System, run north and south, parallel to the Pacific Coast in north-central through north-southern California. The Southern Coast Ranges begin on the San Francisco Peninsula and in

792-460: The mountains are of a great variety and widely varying geologic ages. Most of the rocks were formed during the Tertiary , Cretaceous and Jurassic periods. Most were deposited on the sea bottom as sediments, but in many places also had cracks, crevices and other gaps infused with molten lava or other masses of igneous rock , which were forced in molten condition into the sedimentary rocks. All of

825-775: The only two national forests in California to have tule elk. There is a 10-day hunting season beginning on the second Wednesday in September each year. An estimated 60,000 acres (240 km) of old growth occur here, including forests of Coast Douglas-fir ( Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii ), Ponderosa Pine ( Pinus ponderosa ), White Fir ( Abies concolor ), Tanoak ( Lithocarpus densiflorus ), and Pacific madrone ( Arbutus menziesii ). California Coast Ranges#Northern Coast Ranges The Coast Ranges of California span 400 miles (644 km) from Del Norte or Humboldt County, California , south to Santa Barbara County . The other three coastal California mountain ranges are

858-553: The range has been folded and faulted during several periods, with erosion of the softer rock giving much of the current appearance. The California Ranges had a high production of mercury following the discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada . In the Cache Creek Basin , Cenozoic cinnabar deposits near Clear Lake are the northernmost of a group of similar deposits associated with volcanism and migration of

891-468: The range, and drains eastward via Cache Creek . U.S. Route 101 runs generally north–south in the valleys between the Outer and Inner Northern Coast Ranges. The seaward face of the coastal Outer Northern Coast Ranges is part of the Northern California coastal forests ecoregion, home to lush forests of Coast Redwood and Coast Douglas-fir . The inland and dryer Inner Northern Coast Ranges are part of

924-662: The reserve (as authorized by the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 ) on February 6, 1907, as the Stony Creek Forest Reserve and one month later, the reserve was added to the national forest system as the Stony Creek National Forest . Because of the difficulty of managing such a large tract of land, the northern portion was reassigned to Trinity National Forest , then the final boundaries of the new Stony Creek forest were drawn and

957-620: The species. Some of the rarest forest habitat that occurs in the California Coast Ranges are the Maritime Coast Range Ponderosa Pine forests of the western Santa Cruz Mountains. These isolated groves may include Ponderosa pine , Douglas fir , and knobcone pine . Notably, the highest slopes of the Santa Lucias contain small patches of Sierran Conifer forest, including incense cedar , and ponderosa, Jeffrey, and sugar pines . Steep rocky slopes harbor

990-616: The tragedy resulted in major changes in firefighting strategy and training. The firefighters are memorialized at the Rattlesnake Fire Memorial overlooking Rattlesnake Canyon. Access to it can be found off of Forest Highway 7 on County Road 307/Alder Springs Road. The Trough Fire burned almost 25,000 acres (100 km) of the Mendocino National Forest in 2001 including land in the Snow Mountain Wilderness. Between late July and early September 2018,

1023-566: Was reported mid-afternoon and numerous fire crews responded -- from the Forest Service and the state, along with a pick-up crew hired from the New Tribes Mission at Fouts Springs. By late evening the fire was nearing containment. At about 9 p.m., however, as detailed in John N. Maclean 's 2018 book River of Fire , the wind picked up, reversed direction, and poured downhill. Fifteen firefighters were burned to death as they tried to outrun

Mendocino National Forest - Misplaced Pages Continue

1056-676: Was signed into law by executive order of the president on July 2, 1908, and renamed the California National Forest . "In order to avoid the confusion growing out of the state and a national forest therein having the same name" President Herbert Hoover signed executive order 5885 renaming California National Forest to Mendocino National Forest on July 12, 1932. The development of the forest increased to 81 offices, lookouts and guard stations until improvements in transportation and communications allowed some offices to be closed. Today there are three ranger districts, with some of

1089-674: Was started in 1904 on a 209-acre (0.85 km) site under the Agriculture Research Service. The center's research gradually changed to developing and producing genetically improved plant material for the reforestation program of the Pacific Southwest Region. Major work is done in the areas of biological, chemical, and clinical research on anti-cancer drugs derived The infamous Rattlesnake Fire occurred here in 1953. One Forest Service employee and 14 volunteer firefighters perished. The circumstances of

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