Dozens of homeless people who have been living in a national forest in central Oregon for years were being evicted Thursday by the US Forest Service, as it closed the area for a wildfire prevention project that will involve removing smaller trees,

The Forest Service set a May 1 deadline for homeless campers to leave an area where the agency plans to do wildfire work. More than 60 people remained Wednesday.

Federal forest officials began clearing thousands of acres of forest just outside of Bend, Ore., where more than 100 people live in RVs and cars — a move that one advocacy group called “the largest eviction of a homeless camp in recent history.”