Truckee Donner Land Trust completes 336 acres of Forest Management in 2026

Truckee Donner Land Trust continued to improve our forests’ health in 2026, building on projects completed in previous years, and in collaboration with fire management agencies and neighboring landowners. Together, we are creating landscape-scale improvements throughout the region.

Treating an additional 140 acres of drought- and disease-stressed forest at Royal Gorge this year, this is the latest phase of a multi-year effort adding up to nearly 1,000 acres of forest health improvements on Donner Summit. Funded by the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, this project improves habitat, watershed health, and wildfire resiliency, while also restoring aspen stands and meadows. Thanks also to funders of previous phases – Truckee Fire Protection District, the Martis Fund, and Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation.

Elsewhere on the summit, the Land Trust improved wildfire safety in the wildland-urban interface adjacent to Serene Lakes with funding from PG&E. This 27-acre project creates a shaded fuel break to protect homes on Donner Summit. This year marked the first phase of this project.

To the east, an additional 89 acres were treated in Billy Mack Canyon along Old Highway 40 above Donner Lake – important for fire safety due to its proximity to Interstate 80 and Donner Lake neighborhoods. This the project is funded by CALFIRE through the Truckee Fire Protection District.

On the other side of Truckee, the final 80 acres of forest fuels management on the Land Trust’s Old Greenwood property were completed this year in partnership with Truckee Fire Protection District. This work will help protect Old Greenwood and Prosser neighborhoods. In addition to forest health and wildfire safety, the newly thinned forest will be home to Truckee’s newest disc golf course, making way for the construction of the new public library and KidZone, which will be located on the site of the old disc golf course.

The Land Trust and our partners further protected Trucke’s forests by planting sugar and white pines at Canyon Springs, Royal Gorge, and Pine Forest with the Sugar Pine Foundation, as well as collecting seeds for CALFIRE’s seed bank. Those seeds will help for post-fire restoration.