Volunteers Help Clear Wildfire Fuels at Lake Arrowhead Memorial Forest, Protecting Twin Peaks and Crestline
3 min read
T eam R ubicon volunteers and B et ter Place F orest’ s staf f removed hazardous underbrush and other wi ldfire f uels f rom the B et ter Place F orests Lak e Arrowhead Memorial F orest.
Volunteers with the disaster relief nonprofit Team Rubicon are spending their weekends cutting and hauling away dead branches and small trees from a 50-acre swath of forest above Twin Peaks and Crestline, kicking off a new partnership with Better Place Forests aimed at reducing wildfire risk in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The project focuses on a critical buffer zone that separates the communities of Twin Peaks and Crestline from federal forest land to the south. The site includes Better Place Forests’ Lake Arrowhead Memorial Forest, a non-profit forest where families who choose cremation can hold memorials at dedicated trees, conserve forestland, and seek healing in nature. The area also borders forest land that Cal Fire has mapped as having “very-high” fire hazard severity, making fuel reduction there especially urgent.
“The health of our forests and the health of our community is always our first priority,” said Sean Golightly, Better Place Forests’ Western Area Manager. “Wildfire threatens both. But with the help of Team Rubicon, we have an opportunity to serve our trees and our families at the same time.”
On any given workday, roughly 10 to 15 Team Rubicon volunteers — known as Greyshirts — can be found spread across the hillside, running chainsaws and axes, pulling dry limbs into piles, and cutting down small trees that act as “ladder fuels” capable of carrying flames from the ground into the forest canopy. By removing those fuels and excess debris from the forest floor, the crews are working to make the area more resilient if a wildfire does break out nearby.
“We are all volunteers,” said Manny Arcabos, a Team Rubicon Greyshirt and Planning Coordinator for the Inland Empire. “Greyshirts are built to serve, especially in our own back yard, helping protect our own California communities from future fire hazards.”
Local partners are stepping in to support the work. San Bernardino County Fire Station 91 has provided showers for the volunteers after long days in the field, and Lake Arrowhead Community Presbyterian Church has opened its doors as lodging for the Greyshirts.
“Our church loves Team Rubicon,” Pastor Bill Stanley said. “They have done so much to help us, and when they use our facilities for lodging, they are fantastic guests.”
Golightly said the sight of trees coming down can be unsettling, but emphasized that careful thinning is part of restoring the forest’s natural balance after a century of aggressive fire suppression.
“Sometimes you have to cut a tree to protect a forest,” he said. “It can be counter-intuitive, but these California forests adapted over millenia to thrive with small, frequent fires. Now, after a century of fire suppression, they are over-loaded with fuel.
“Healing from grief is an active process,” Golightly added. “Healing wildfire risk is no different.”
For Team Rubicon, the Lake Arrowhead Memorial Forest work reflects a broader shift from responding only after disasters to helping communities prepare before they strike. The veteran-led humanitarian organization built its reputation on disaster response around the world, but in recent years has added pre-disaster mitigation, including wildfire risk-reduction projects like this one. In 2024 alone, Greyshirt volunteers completed dozens of wildfire mitigation projects across California and have performed numerous wildfire recovery and mitigation operations in Southern California this year.
“It’s like the old saying goes: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Arcabos said. “It is immensely more cost effective to prevent a disaster than respond to one, especially when it comes to wildfire in the West.”
On the ground, those benefits are already visible. At the Lake Arrowhead Memorial Forest, crews have created towering piles of branches and small trees that are chipped on site. Those woodchips will be reused along forest pathways, helping control erosion and keeping trails walkable for families visiting memorial trees.
For Golightly, the partnership underscores how wildfire risk doesn’t stop at property lines.
“The wildfire crisis does not stop at federal, state, or private property lines,” he said. “All of us need to work together. Every piece counts toward making a more fire-resilient community.”
