Mendocino National Forest

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Mendocino National Forest straddles the eastern spur of the Coastal Mountain Range in northwestern California, just a three hour drive north of San Francisco and Sacramento. Some 65 miles (105 km) long and 35 miles (56 km) across, the Forest's federally owned 913,306 acres (3,696 km²) of mountains and canyons offer a variety of recreational opportunities — camping, hiking, backpacking, boating, fishing, hunting, nature study, photography, and off-highway vehicle travel.

The infamous Rattlesnake Fire occurred here in 1953. One Forest Service employee and 14 volunteer firefighters perished due to a killer weather phenomenon. The circumstances of the tragedy resulted in major changes in firefighting strategy and training.^{[citation needed]}

The forest lies in parts of six counties. In descending order of forestland area they are Lake, Glenn, Mendocino, Tehama, Trinity, and Colusa counties. [1] Forest headquarters are located in Willows, California.

The forest includes four wilderness areas:

Snow Mountain Wilderness — 37,680 acres (152 km²)
Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness — 147,070 acres (595 km²)
Yuki Wilderness
Sanhedrin Wilderness

The latter two were signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. This legislation, entitled "Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act," added areas to both the Yolla Bolly - Middle Eel Wilderness and Snow Mountain Wilderness, and established the two new wilderness areas on the Mendocino National Forest.