Wildfire Risk Reduction
Creates a high-value outlet for hazardous forest residues, dead trees, slash, and other material that otherwise create fire and air-quality dangers.
Wildfire resilience infrastructure for the Sierra
Turning hazardous forest waste into community power.
North Fork Community Power is a 2 MW biomass gasification project owned by the North Fork Community Development Council. The facility converts high-hazard forestry waste from the surrounding Sierra National Forest region into renewable electricity and biochar.
2 MW
renewable power capacity
24/7
clean electricity
Sierra National Forest
Residue Supply Area
North Fork, CA
Community-Owned
Environmental and public-safety value
A practical outlet for the material California needs removed from its forests.
BioMAT was created to help small, forest-sourced bioenergy projects serve rural communities while reducing wildfire fuels. NFCP is exactly that kind of infrastructure: local, dispatchable, and tied to forest restoration work that protects communities.
Clean Local Power
Converts locally sourced biomass into grid-connected renewable electricity through advanced gasification instead of open pile burning or long-haul disposal.
Carbon-Negative Potential
Produces biochar that can lock stable carbon into soils while supporting agricultural water retention and soil health in California's Central Valley.
Rural Economic Development
Reactivates the former North Fork sawmill site with permanent jobs and an anchor for future state of the art biomass campus.
How the project works
Forest restoration residues become reliable renewable electricity.
The facility is designed around advanced gasification, a process that heats prepared woody material with limited oxygen to create syngas. That syngas fuels engines that generate electricity and produce biochar, a stable carbon product.
01
Forest restoration and hazard-fuel projects remove high-risk woody material from nearby lands.
02
Material is received and prepared at the North Fork facility on the former mill site.
03
Gasification converts biomass into clean syngas, renewable electricity, heat, and biochar.
04
Electricity is sold under California's BioMAT framework while biochar stores carbon in durable form.
The former sawmill site can become a working hub for the next generation of forest stewardship.
Community ownership and redevelopment
Built for North Fork, owned by North Fork.
The project sits on the former North Fork sawmill site, where the closure of the mill in the 1990s left a lasting economic gap. North Fork Community Power turns that site back into productive infrastructure creating skilled jobs and keeping more forest-management dollars within the local economy.
Located in North Fork, California, near the southern Sierra forestlands that most need durable biomass outlets.
Owned by the North Fork Community Development Council, aligning project value with community priorities.
Designed to support the wider Sierra strategy of removing excess biomass before it increases fire danger or decreases air quality.
Public-sector alignment
Supported by agencies, utility partners, and community institutions focused on fire, forests, and rural resilience.
California needs small-scale biomass infrastructure that makes forest restoration economically possible.
Long-term project sustainability means reliable offtake, constructive agency coordination, and policy support that recognizes the full public value: avoided wildfire risk, avoided pile-burning emissions, renewable power, carbon storage, and rural job creation.