Several controlled burns will bring smoky skies
Authorities plan to take advantage of latewinter, early spring conditions to conduct several prescribed burns later in May, staff with the Stanislaus National Forest and Calaveras Big Trees State Park announced in late April and this week.
The prescribed fires planned on up to 1,058 acres in the Strawberry area, up to 680 acres northwest of Pinecrest, up to 154 acres near Arnold, and about 250 acres in the North Grove of Giant Sequoias at Calaveras Big Trees State Park are intended to improve forest health and reduce the threats of uncontrolled megablazes. The Sierra Nevada is a fire-dependent ecosystem, which means fire is a critical part of natural forest processes, and that fire helps maintain resilient forests.
There are no plans to commence prescribed burning treatments in the extremely threatened Calaveras Big Trees South Grove of Giant Sequoias until this fall, even though 13% to 19% of the world’s giant sequoias have been killed or mortally burned by wildfires in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and the Sequoia National Forest since August 2020.
The combined acreage for the announced prescribed burns planned this month and in June adds up to less than 3.4 square miles. By comparison, the overgrown Stanislaus National Forest alone covers more than 1,400 square miles.
A Fire Danger update for the Stanislaus National Forest was listed as LOW on Friday afternoon.
All the prescribed fires are likely to produce smoke that will be visible to residents and visitors in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties. The Cal Fire Tuolumne-calaveras Unit already did prescribed fire treatments earlier this week on about 40 acres four miles north of Wilseyville near Schaad Road and Forest Creek in West Point, in northeast Calaveras County earlier
this week, Battalion Chief John Fredrick said in a phone interview Friday afternoon.
“It was a perfect prescription,” Frederick said. “Conditions were perfect and the fire didn’t get into any of the mature trees.”
The prescribed burn operation north of Wilseyville was conducted Monday and Tuesday this week.
Here are some basics about prescribed burns planned later this month:
• The North Grove Prescribed Burn near Highway 4 in Calaveras Big Trees State Park is planned to begin Tuesday next week as part of a series of prescription burns planned in the park this spring, summer, and fall, Amber Sprock, a spokesperson for the park and California State Parks, said Friday.
Prescribed burn approvals will depend on weather conditions and resources available for the project, a visitor alert on the park’s website states. Active burning will occur over several days, and smoke will remain in the area for several weeks after active firing has ceased. Visitors should expect periodic road and trail closures during active burning. Walter W. Smith Memorial Parkway was closed at the Stanislaus River Picnic Area as of Friday afternoon.
State parks authorities and giant sequoia advocates touted ambitious plans repeatedly earlier this year for prescribed burn treatments in the entire 1,300-acre South Grove, home to more than 1,100 extremely threatened giant sequoias between Highway 4 and Highway 108 in remote north-central Tuolumne County.
Asked Friday what’s happened to those plans and whether they have been shelved or postponed, Sprock responded, “California State Parks continues to work closely with Cal Fire on assessing the conditions for a prescribed burn in the South Grove at Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Our crews will continue preparing the area into the summer with the goal of initiating a prescribed burn in the fall.”
Earlier this year, giant sequoia advocates with the nonprofit Calaveras Big Trees Association described the situation in the park as a crisis and an emergency, and called out the state parks director to speed up plans for more prescribed burns to try and save the giant sequoias in North Fork Stanislaus River watersheds in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties.
Severe fire threats to the overgrown Calaveras Big Trees South Grove of 1,000 giant sequoias in Tuolumne County prompted the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition, a group of federal, state, local, tribal, and academic partners that formed in July 2021 to try to protect the world’s remaining giant sequoias from threats of climate change and catastrophic wildfire, to declare the South Grove the “most at-risk” remaining unburned sequoia grove on earth.
Asked Friday what the Calaveras Big Trees Association makes of current plans that include no burning in the South Grove until this fall, Marcie Powers, an association spokesperson, said, “We were not involved in the park’s deliberations with Cal Fire. We’re disappointed, of course, but we have to live with the decisions of the controlling authorities.”
• The Strawberry Area Prescribed Fire plan calls for igniting 50 acres to 200 acres of understory burns a day, beneath the forest canopy, with burning operations to continue as long as conditions allow, with the majority of prescribed fire planned in the Herring Creek watershed. Summit Mi-wok Ranger District personnel are expected to be assigned through May and into the month of June.
The Strawberry Area Prescribed Fire is intended to focus on low-intensity fire consumption of surface fuels, not overstory, canopy vegetation, to enhance wildlife habitat, protect and maintain water quality and soil productivity, and improve forest ecosystem health, Dan Guse, an assistant district fire management officer, said in late April.
Smoke from the Strawberry Area Prescribed Fire may be visible from Highway 108. Fire managers intend to work closely with local air districts and the state Air Resources Board to mitigate effects of smoke on the public, forest staff said.
• The Dry Meadow Prescribed Burn plan calls for prescribed fire treatments on up to 680 acres about six miles northwest of Pinecrest, along Forest Road 5N02, north of Beardsley Reservoir, in the vicinity of Dry Meadow Fire Station 34, southeast of the Tuolumne State Game Refuge. Summit Mi-wok Ranger District personnel will also be assigned to the Dry Meadow Prescribed Burn through the month of May and as long as conditions allow.
Burning will be contingent on weather, fuel moisture, and air quality. All burning will be monitored and conducted in accordance with county and state air quality guidelines, and coordinated with county air quality control districts. The Dry Meadow Prescribed Burn is also planned as an understory burn beneath the forest canopy. Smoke may be visible from Highway 108 and fire managers urge the public not to report the Dry Meadow Prescribed Burn as a wildfire.
• The Arnold Area Prescribed Burn plan calls for igniting up to 154 acres in May and into mid-june, with Calaveras Ranger District personnel assigned. The burn area is described as within the O’manuel portion of the Irish-o’manuel Burn Area, units 17, 19, and 21, west of Arnold.
Daily burns and the acreage burned are expected to vary based on environmental conditions and smoke production. The Arnold Area Prescribed Burn is also planned as an understory burn beneath the forest canopy. Smoke may be visible from Highway 4.
The burns listed above are not part of the Social and Ecological Resilience Across the Landscape project to reduce fire threats in the South Fork and Middle Fork Stanislaus watersheds, Ben Cossel, a Stanislaus National Forest spokesperson, said this week. The three burns are part of the larger Stanislaus Landscape Project the forest recently received $55 million for, Cossel said.
Burn bosses will be monitoring conditions on a daily basis to burn as much as they are able within the prescribed conditions, Cossel said.
Dore Bietz, the county’s Office of Emergency Services coordinator, was asked if she and other county government officials anticipate any complaints from the public regarding the prescribed fires over the next two months.
“I don’t think so,” Bietz said. “I mean, there always is, but I think the education is getting much better. It was always about air quality, or the inconvenience of air quality for some, or the fact that they see smoke and they’re not paying attention to the news that there is a prescribed burn so they get a little frantic.
“But I think folks are getting a little bit better understanding that there’s a necessity to the prescribed burn, and the amount of resources, as well as predicting certain things for that prescription, allow it to be pretty safe. So, prescribed fire is definitely becoming much more accepted.”
A recent high-profile prescribed burn operation some Tuolumne County residents may remember was conducted on Mount Provo, between Twain Harte, Ponderosa Hills, and Tuolumne township, on Nov. 30, 2021. Burn bosses, fuels management officers, and other Stanislaus National Forest staff said weather forecasts were favorable to proceed with conducting prescribed fire operations on Mount Provo in late November.
For more information about prescribed burn plans in the Stanislaus National Forest and burn plan maps visit www. fs. usda. gov/ news/ stanislaus/news-events.