UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The Mendocino National Forest's Upper Lake District celebrated its 80th birthday last year, and this past weekend it marked the opening of a new and up-to-date ranger station.
The recently constructed building is the result of a two-year wait, with demolition of the former facility having begun in the late spring of 2011 and groundbreaking for the new structure in fall of that same year.
November 2013 saw the significantly modernized Upper Lake District Ranger Station completed and the move-in began.
Last Saturday, May 3, was the open house, complete with ribbon cutting ceremony, guided tour and refreshments. About 50 people were in attendance.
“This is an opportunity for other agencies and the public to see the finished product and learn about their local Forest Service,” said Frank Aebly, the Upper Lake Ranger District’s temporary acting ranger.
The former station’s offices were comprised of three main and two utility structures that were built in the 1930s by the California Conservation Corps, or CCC, under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
Being three independent buildings “made communication difficult between the various departments,” Aebly said.
When asked if personnel were excited to move in, Aebly said, “It was tough because everyone lost about 40 percent office space and we had to figure out what stayed and what didn’t.”
The new and open floor plan has everyone under the same roof in one building with two wings. Though office space shrank, “total square footage increased to 5,000 square feet,” explained Debbie McIntosh, supportive services specialist, “with the addition of a large break room with kitchen, a computer control and communications room, a conference room with movable partition, a dedicated union office, large bathrooms with showers, and several storage rooms.”
The station has central heat and air, energy efficient lighting with motion controls, and wireless Internet. Additionally, located outside and in between the building’s two wings is a courtyard with benches and pergolas for shade.
McIntosh said there had been a large Redwood tree in proximity to where the courtyard presently sits, but was removed out of necessity and that a firefighter had made several pieces of furniture from its wood.
The district has nearly 50 full-time, year-around personnel distributed throughout the four departments of recreation, planning, law enforcement and fire, and is the westside headquarters for both Upper Lake and Covelo Districts. That number increases to around 100 as seasonal recreation and fire personnel are hired for spring and summer.
The Upper Lake station issues approximately 7,000 permits annually for campfires, Christmas trees, personal use firewood cutting and a host of other permits. “But that figure doesn’t accurately represent total public usage,” said McIntosh, “because not everyone’s forest activities requires a permit, so the figure is probably much higher.”
Mendocino National Forest is comprised of three districts within two geographic divisions. Grindstone District oversees the entire “eastside” with headquarters for the entire forest located in Willows. The “westside” has Covelo District to the north and Upper Lake District in the south.
The forest now has more than one million acres that run approximately 65 miles in length from north to south, and 35 miles east to west. Recently, a large, privately owned parcel of approximately 73,000 acres was willed and deeded over to the forest; the new land is located in the northeastern area of the forest, but was already located within the forest’s boundary.
The forest covers portions of the six counties of Lake, Glenn, Mendocino, Tehama, Trinity, and Colusa, as well as the sovereign nations of 21 individual indigenous tribes.
Aebly’s tenure will conclude at the end of this month. Formerly he was hired and joined the district as a hydrologist in the planning department. After an 11-month stint with Sierra National Forest in Fresno, Aebly returned to Upper Lake, he said, “Because I missed Lake County.”
He was later promoted to planner, overseeing the planning department. Aebly has been acting ranger since February, after the previous ranger left, and has “thoroughly enjoyed a more comprehensive involvement in affairs at the forest and district levels,” he said.
Furthermore, he expressed a passion for public awareness and interaction, stressing, “There is a lot more to forestry than recreation and fire prevention and suppression.”
Aebly added, “I want school children to know that there are so many different careers available working in the forest.”
He will return to the planning department soon, but hopes to see the Forest Services’ involvement with local schools and the community at large, continue to grow.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been expanded; the earlier version of the story had incorrectly stated that the new building replaced two earlier ones, when in fact, it replaces three buildings that had been on the site, and that the district had celebrated 70 years, when in fact it celebrated 80 years.
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