Crews rebuilding Berkeley Camp battle fires on the side
Michael Oliva, a vice president at Boyer Construction and a senior project manager for the reconstruction of the City of Berkeley’s Tuolumne Camp outside Groveland, saw smoke and fire emanating from a hill a quartermile from their worksite on Hardin Flat Road on July 23.
He jumped in a truck with superintendent Matt Fray and acquisitioned two 2,000-gallon water trucks to join them. Clay Peterson with Peterson Excavation came next with a backhoe, and later, another person brought a skid steer.
Oliva said roughly “30 guys with shovels” were in action almost immediately cutting a line around two, half-acre fires at the site.
“It was close. We knew the wind was picking up,” he said. “It had already started to engulf some trees.”
Their efforts proved to effectively stymie the spread of the fire, possibly protecting the ongoing Tuolumne Camp project and the popular resort Rush Creek Lodge before fire crews arrived on scene 45 minutes later to extinguish it.
Oliva does not have any professional fire experience and said only a few of their crew members have actually worked on fires, but their worksites have fire preparedness policies already in place, including with
full water trucks on site.
“We’ve lived up here our whole lives. We’ve been through lots of fires,” he said.
Adam Frese with the Cal Fire Tuolumne Calaveras Unit said the fire near Berkeley Camp on July 23 was a Stanislaus National Forest incident.
Boyer crews responded to yet another fire on Aug. 3, this time near Highway 120 and Ferretti Road, west of Buck Meadows.
Oliva said he and other owners at Boyer Construction, which is based in Sonora, also own a 150-acre ranch outside of Groveland and near Ferretti Road where they store lumber and equipment.
Oliva received a call Tuesday that a fire had ignited across the street.
“Some of our painting crew were the first ones on site,” he said. “Our crew came in after it with shovels and fire extinguishers.”
Oliva arrived on scene just a little bit after about 10 construction crew members and before fire crews, who used water from a pond on the property to extinguish the fire.
“I’m glad we were here,” he said. “Had it happened a couple hours later, we wouldn’t have been here,”
Oliva said he believed the fire crews responded as fast as they could and commended the assignment of firefighting aircraft to the sites.
“I know a lot of the guys on these crews, and they got there as fast as they could. No big concern,” he said.
Frese said the vegetation fire ended up being about 2 acres in size. He said that
Air Attack 440, Tanker 82, Tanker 83, Copter 404, Division 4405, Battalion 4415, Battalion 4420, STF Dozer 51, STF Engine 342, STF Engine 345, CAL FIRE Engines 4281, 4291, 4456, 4466, 4470, 4475, 4476, Engine 781, two CAL FIRE hand crews from Baseline, Helitender 404, three water tenders, Dozer 4241, and miscellaneous supervisors were assigned to the fire.
It was ultimately extinguished by the firefighting personnel who responded to the incident, Frese said.
A vehicle was determined to be the most probable cause.
Frese did not provide comment on response times or the proximity of fire stations to the Groveland area.
The Groveland Community Services District currently has a cooperative agreement with Cal Fire to provide fire protection services for the community from a station on Main Street.
According to the Cal Fire /Tuolumne County Fire Department 20212025 strategic plan, there is a Smith Station department near Groveland with no volunteers, and calls are absorbed by other nearby stations.
Cal Fire and the county fire department have an objective during this time to fund a full-time, careerstaffed South County fire station, the plan states.
“The closest staffed engine company to the county jurisdiction in the greater Groveland
area is a Groveland Community Services District-funded fire engine,” the document states. “The closest county funded engine to the entire Highway 120 corridor responds out of Jamestown.”
It notes nearly 500,000 entering Yosemite National Park via the western Big Oak Flat entrance and resorts in the area, which could increase fire risk.
“Mitigation of any future developments need to include addressing the service gaps in the area, and a staffed fire station needs to be established in the area between Groveland and the National Park boundary along the Highway 120 corridor,” the document said.
Oliva said the Berkeley Camp project began almost 14 months ago and was set to finish by next summer, pending expected wintertime delays. He said they plan to build about 100 buildings and estimate they are about 65% complete at this time.
The Berkeley Camp has been in operation since 1922, according to the City of Berkeley, but the original camp was largely destroyed by the 2013 Rim Fire.
“This was a devastating setback for the City of Berkeley and generations of staff and campers. Of the 138 total structures at the camp, only 18 tent cabins and the restroom near Sun City survived the fire,” the Berkeley website said.
Before that, the city estimated the camp hosted more than 4,000 guests annually.
Oliva said the work includes building a large dining hall, a recreational hall, staff house, tent cabins and several bathrooms.
“It’s a large camp. It’s definitely the biggest project we’ve ever done, and so far it’s progressing nicely,” Oliva said. “We have been making good progress. We have anywhere from 40 to 60 guys on site each day. Lots of local contractors.”