Greetings from the Fire, Native Plant, & Restoration Corps!
We finished up last week with another successful Corps Member Training in McCall, ID for the Fire & Native Plant Corps! Our group of Corps Members and Project Leaders from all over the country came together for a five to eight day training (May 26-June 3) at the University of Idaho McCall Outdoor Science School Campus. Our days were filled with rain and learning about SCA, risk management, ecology, wilderness first aid, chainsaw skills, and monitoring skills as well as giving them the opportunity to hike when the sun was out, experience an Idaho hot spring, or for the really brave a swim in the lake!
A big thank you goes out to all our Project Leaders (Chris, Michael, Anna, Bobby, Patrick, Tyler, Adam, Kara, Annie, Calicoe, Joe, Stephanie & Molly) who also did some substantial on-site training before arriving in McCall and to the Managers/Coordinators (Meredith, Hannah, & Mike) who helped with all the preparations! As well as those who came to present in McCall (Jay Satz, Jill Baum, Kat, Robin, Aerie and U of I staff) thank you for making this such a successful training! And lastly thank you to all of you (especially Leslie & Nikki) who were behind the scenes helping us recruit, interview, screen, process, invoice, and assist us along the way so that we could fill 49 corps member spots for this summer season. You all rock!
Meanwhile, our two Restoration teams were being trained up for their summer seasons in the El Dorado National Forest and High Schells Wilderness. Steve Hester and Jamie Weleber led the training for the Cabin Restoration team led by Alex Vanderby that will be working on maintaining historic cabins in the El Dorado & Stanislaus National Forest before ending with a boardwalk project in Tahoe. The second summer Restoration team training was lead by Darren Gruetze and Emily Frankel for the Ely, NV restoration team lead by Zach McBride. This team will be working on eliminating line of site on old roads going into the wilderness area. Sorry I don’t have any pictures of either of these successful trainings, too.
In summary, here’s a list of our sites for this summer and the one Native Plant team that started this spring. If you are in the area of one of our sites this summer, please stop by and visit!
Fire
North Carolina Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) team
Dixie & Fishlake National Forests team
Wayne National Forest—Athens District
Wayne National Forest—Ironton District
Angeles National Forest
Native Plant
Cuyahoga National Park
Mammoth Caves National Park & State of Kentucky
Grand Canyon National Park
Superior National Forest—Ely District
Superior National Forest—Grand Marais District
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park—Hancock
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park—Oldtown
Southeast Exotic Plant Management (Asheville Corridor)
Restoration
Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest—Ely District
El Dorado/Stanislaus/Tahoe (Historic Cabin Restoration)
Please check out our progress this year on our project websites by following the link on the main SCA website: Serve/Conservation Corps/From the Field.
