California Tree School Brings Hands-On Forestry Training to Eureka May 2

The College of the Redwoods campus in Eureka will host the inaugural California Tree School on Saturday, May 2, a nine-hour hands-on forestry event organized by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources in collaboration with the College of the Redwoods Department of Forestry and the UC ANR Fire Network. Registration closes April 17, and organizers are urging early sign-up as individual classes may fill.

The event runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is structured around participant choice: each attendee selects four classes from a menu of 22 available courses spanning all knowledge levels. Classes are led by UC academics and local natural resource professionals drawn from College of the Redwoods, CAL FIRE, Humboldt Redwood Company, the Karuk Department of Natural Resources, and other organizations. No prior experience is required, and the sessions are open to anyone age 15 and older, including forest landowners and community members with no background in forestry.

The California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force, which tracks the initiative on its website, describes the Tree School as a pilot program designed to reach a broader audience than earlier UC ANR offerings. The Task Force's framing is explicit: the Forest Stewardship and UC ANR Fire Network teams are "holding the first California Tree School, where individuals attend multiple in-person classes on forestry topics." That pilot framing distinguishes this event from the UC ANR Forest Stewardship Education program's existing online workshops, which guide landowners through forest management planning and post-fire landscape recovery. The Tree School is conceived as an in-person complement to those digital resources.

Humboldt County's session is one of two held this spring. A parallel event took place April 18 in Paradise, Butte County, with a registration deadline of April 3.

The Eureka event's curriculum is explicitly designed to deliver hands-on experience with forestry tools, introduce participants to fire resilience practices, and build foundational knowledge across a range of natural resource subjects. Registration is available through the UC ANR website, where the Humboldt County event page lists the April 17 deadline and advises prospective attendees to secure their spot before courses close out.