The McConnell Foundation has secured a large grant from Cal-Fire for a wildfire hazard mitigation and fuel reduction project in Eastern Shasta County. The work will concentrate on road corridors in wildland-urban-interface areas. The $3.9 Million grant will help prevent human activities from causing destruction to the mixed conifer forests, thereby converting them to shrub cover which has less fire resiliency and less carbon storage. That’s what happened to much of the areas decimated by the Fountain Fire in 1992. Another grant announced in the round of funding is $180,000 to the City of Shasta Lake for hand clearing of 45 acres of heavy brush and trees to create a fuel break. A Tehama County fuel reduction program is getting $270,000. Almost a Million Dollars is going to Siskiyou County for two separate projects, one in South Dunsmuir and one at Juniper Flat. Two projects in Butte County will get more than a Half Million Dollars each, and more than $3.3 Million is going to Lassen County. In all, more than $43 Million is being distributed around the state.