Force Energy Systems CEO, Etienne Patenaude, answers questions during a tour of the new Tuolumne BioEnergy facility in Sonora, Ca. The recent opening wraps up the three-tiered community and watershed program that resulted from a $70.4 million National Disaster Resilience Competition federal grant.

Program funded through federal National Disaster Resilience Competition to help Tuolumne County recover after 2013 Rim Fire

March 13, 2026 - Out of the ashes of the devastating Rim Fire that burned more than 250,000 acres in and around Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park in 2013, rose the Community and Watershed Resilience Program – a collaborative federal, state, regional, and local effort to help residents of Tuolumne County recover from the blaze and prepare for future major disturbances.

The grand opening of the Tuolumne BioEnergy facility in Sonora, Ca., in January completed the federally funded program.

“The Community and Watershed Resilience Program that came out of the National Disaster Resilience Competition was one of the most long-term, collaborative efforts the SNC has ever been involved in,” said Angela Avery, executive officer of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC). “This program took multiple years of hard work and focus from so many dedicated partners looking to help the region recover from the Rim Fire and ensure the landscape and communities are more resilient to future disasters. I am incredibly proud and excited to see this multi-beneficial effort come to a successful close with the opening of the second biomass facility.”

After the Rim Fire, Tuolumne County, the SNC, and the California Department of Housing and Community Development applied for and received a $70.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing’s National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC) to launch the Community and Watershed Resilience Program. Available to state and local governments impacted by major disasters between 2011–2013, the federal funding encouraged communities to not only rebuild infrastructure lost due to major disturbances, but also to improve resilience through plans and policies that better prepare regions for future extreme weather and climate impacts.

The program included a broad partnership made up of Tuolumne County, the Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC), the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC), the California Department of Housing and Community Development, the California Environmental Protection Agency, Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, the U.S. Forest Service, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Federal grant funds three key program goals

For Tuolumne County, the grant focused on three goals: establish a Forest and Watershed Health Program to protect communities and the natural landscape; create one or two Community Resilience Centers to provide vital resources after a natural disaster; and establish a Biomass Utilization Fund to invest in new facilities that will create jobs and help reduce fuels throughout nearby forests, which includes burned material inside the Rim Fire footprint.

The Community and Watershed Resilience Program led to many forest- and watershed-health projects, two new community resilience centers, and two new biomass facilities, which will help the region address unmet recovery needs from the Rim Fire, while also supporting community protection and resilience.

During the course of the grant, the SNC, in partnership with the US Forest Service, led a $28 million endeavor to replant trees in high-severity burn zones to prevent forest-to-chaparral conversion and reduce excess fuels and noxious weeds on roughly 14,000 acres. The partnership also created and enhanced strategic fuelbreaks on nearly 2,000 acres to reduce fire risk. The work of the Forest and Watershed Health Program ran from 2018–2022, mostly within and adjacent to the Stanislaus National Forest.

Tuolumne County took the lead in building the two new community resilience centers, completed in 2023, to provide shelter and necessary resources in the event of a future disaster. Located in Groveland and Tuolumne City, respectively, the centers currently provide community services, education programs, and job training seminars to residents.

Final program goal – two biomass facilities

Under the Biomass Utilization Fund portion of the program, the RCAC partnered with the SNC to distribute $17 million in available funding to support projects that create local jobs through the utilization of biomass from forest-restoration activities. Biomass facilities not only bring employment opportunities but also remove and process woody material that would otherwise be left to degrade in place, be masticated, or piled and burned in the forest.

“This Biomass Utilization Fund is not just about biomass utilization, but a more holistic approach to forest resilience and wildfire-risk reduction,” said Cyndi Spencer, chief operating officer with the RCAC. “In addition, the economic development and creation of living wage jobs support local families and strengthen regional economies. This not only improves forest health but also fosters long-term economic resilience and community prosperity.”

The Biomass Utilization Fund invested in two facilities, Tuolumne Biomass in Jamestown and Tuolumne BioEnergy in Sonora. Being a recoverable grant fund also means that funding for both facilities will be paid back in time to then be reinvested in similar projects across the state. This revolving loan fund strategy aims to create additional biomass projects across California in the future.

The first $9.7 million from the Biomass Utilization Fund, along with other grants and loans, created Tuolumne Biomass, which opened in October 2024.

“We were invited here many years ago after Tuolumne County was first approached with some federal funding around response to the Rim Fire and looking to establish a business here,” said David Schmidt, CEO of Tuolumne Biomass, which is owned by Heartwood Biomass out of Oregon. “We took that invitation, spent time in the community, and really came to a place where we knew the infrastructure was here, support from the local government was here, and the U.S. Forest Service was supportive. It really has the right ecosystem for doing a business like ours.”

The facility utilizes material from forest-restoration projects, such as small-diameter trees, brush, branches, and non-merchantable logs and turns it into usable, profitable products – mostly bundled firewood for residential use and peeled poles for agricultural use. In operation for over a year, it currently processes roughly 30,000 tons of biomass annually and employs up to 16 full-time staff.

David Schmidt, CEO of Tuolumne Biomass, leads a tour of the facility in Jamestown, Ca.

Basically, Schmidt added, “if you can put it on a truck and get it to our facility, we will utilize it.”

To complement the critical forest-restoration activities taking place in nearby forests, the remaining funds in the Biomass Utilization Fund went toward creating Tuolumne BioEnergy, which started operating in January of this year.

This facility removes non-sawmill material out of the forests, brings it to its Sonora location, and turns it into wood-burning pellets to be sold directly to homeowners and commercial outlets, like Lowe’s and Tractor Supply. When in full operation, the facility is expected to produce roughly 30,000 tons of bagged pellets per year and employ up to 25 full-time staff.

“This has been done a hundred times before, but not at a scale we are doing here, and specifically not with using forest residues as the source,” said Etienne Patenaude, CEO of Force Energy Systems, Inc., owner of Tuolumne BioEnergy. “The problem on the waste side was it was just all getting pile burned in the forest. So, that means 100 percent emissions and no value to anyone. Not to mention it costs the Forest Service or loggers to have to go out and pile burn it. So, this operation completely alleviates all that burden.”

Tuolumne BioEnergy is also powered and heated through the energy generated through its pellet-making process, making it energy independent. In fact, Patenaude added the facility may sell power back to the local utility company in times of surplus production.

With the opening of the two facilities, both the communities of Tuolumne County and the surrounding natural landscape will benefit.

“These facilities create a sustainable outlet for hazardous forest fuels, enabling large-scale reduction efforts in the Stanislaus National Forest and improving the overall landscape health,” Spencer added. “The conversion of excess biomass into usable products helps to reduce wildfire risk and supports ecological resilience.”

Tuolumne County More Prepared for Future

Burned and dead trees left behind after the 2013 Rim Fire. The fire burned more than 250,000 acres and at the time was the third-largest wildfire in California history.

When the Rim Fire was officially contained in October of 2013, it burned more than 250,000 acres and destroyed more than 110 structures, making it the third-largest wildfire in California history and the largest in the Sierra Nevada region at the time. In the aftermath, the wildfire revealed longstanding vulnerabilities throughout Tuolumne County.

The Community and Watershed Resilience Program and its three-tiered goals aim to change all that. Through extensive forest health and forest-restoration efforts, the landscape in and around Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park will now be more resilient to disasters, while the jobs provided and the products produced will help boost the local economy.

In a changing climate where wildfire seasons are getting longer and more intense, this collaborative resilience work on both the environmental and economic sides will also hopefully serve as a model for other Sierra-Cascade communities throughout the Golden State.

“Ultimately, all these extraordinary developments from the program strengthen community safety and potentially position the region as a leader in innovative forest management, which we plan on applying to other forested regions across the state,” Spencer concluded.

Source: SNC