Elyria Canyon Community Fire Resilience

Elyria Canyon Park is a 35-acre nature park on the southwestern slopes of Mount Washington, an important remnant habitat near downtown Los Angeles. Elyria is home to an important black walnut woodland as well as hiking trails and scenic vistas. The Elyria Canyon Community Fire Resilience Project is a collaboration between North East Trees, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority and local community leaders. The goals of the project are to increase climate resilience through strategic fuel reduction and non-native vegetation management – working to deplete the invasive seed bank at certain key areas of the park, restoring native habitat using plant material that is locally collected and grown by at the NET native plant nursery.

By hiring, educating and training local at-promise youth from various Northeast LA communities, this project creates a pipeline to future jobs in the conservation and fire management fields.

Key Project Benefits

• Modify and reduce fuel in strategic sections of the park

• Plant 100 native trees and 2,500 other native plants

• Demonstrate ecologically sensitive strategies for managing wildfire risk

• Engage community organizations

• Provide green job skills training and employment for local at-promise youth