Los Padres National Forest

Deep inside the San Rafael Wilderness, employees from the Los Padres National Forest are working to inventory centuries-old Chumash sacred sites impacted by devastating wildfires. Despite closure orders that restrict public access in America’s first congressionally designated wilderness, forest...

Along Monterey’s Big Sur coast in California, the job of responding to “fire starts” rests on the shoulders of Los Padres National Forest firefighters and their partners at the Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade as Monterey County doesn’t have a fire department. When a coastal landowner’s pile burn...

Recovery Act funding spurs a renaissance in backcountry trail maintenance. This year, visitors to the Los Padres National Forest, near Goleta, Calif., are seeing widespread wilderness trail improvements thanks to Recovery Act funds. Nearly $2.3 million was allocated to the forest for wilderness...