Less than an hour from downtown L.A., Angeles National Forest is truly a “backyard forest.” Within the San Gabriel Mountains, the forest includes nearly 700 miles of trails traversing mountains, canyons, forests and more. Much of the forest’s landscape is chaparral, shaped by a Mediterranean climate of mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers filled with hardy, drought tolerant species. Five wilderness areas offer visitors the chance to escape the congestion of the greater Los... (Read more…)

If you’re looking for a National Forest to get your feet wet in, stop through Ocala National Forest. Less than an hour and a half north of Orlando, Florida, Ocala National Forest has more than 600 lakes, rivers and springs to explore. In addition to water opportunities, the Ocala has hiking and horse trails, campgrounds and more. Plus, as cold weather settles in up north, the Ocala makes for a great winter getaway. Longleaf pine forests once covered 90 million acres of the... (Read more…)

For most of June and July, national news outlets reported on the growing wildfires in Arizona. Each week, dry, hot winds increased the fires’ intensity and size, forcing residents to flee communities in the path of the blaze and decimating hundreds of thousands of forested acres. As the fires intensified, the NFF began receiving calls from residents and businesses who wanted to help. Our initial response was to simply respect the intensely hard work of firefighters and other Forest... (Read more…)

Having just returned from an assignment to the Coronado National Forest’s Horseshoe 2 Fire as a Safety Officer on a Northern Rockies Incident Management Team, I wanted to share some of my experiences and observations. The 223,000 acre fire burned through most of the Chiricahua Mountains, including the Chiricahua National Mounument .  The team was assigned to complete the mop-up of the fire as well to rehabilitate the firelines constructed as part of the suppression... (Read more…)