From The Canyon Weekly:

With nearly $5 million in grant money you can do a lot of cleanup and recovery work. And that’s what a “fuels reduction crew” is attempting to do in the Santiam Canyon.

Community Services Consortium crews, paid for by a $4.8 million grant from the U.S. Forest Service, got started in the fall of 2024 and have been making a difference ever since.

On Tuesday, April 1, The Canyon Weekly visited one of the crews at North Fork Park, a Marion County facility just off Highway 22 near Mehama. The park suffered heavy damage in the 2020 wildfires and only reopened last spring. It remains a work in progress, with slash everywhere and the loss of many trees making it more of a meadow experience than a forest one.

The 11-person CSC crew was spread throughout the park. One group was on the beach, cleaning up the slash and driftwood to improve visitor access…

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