Tuolumne gets $10 million to reduce wildfire fuels. Will this finally move the dial?
Two $5 million state grants will help Tuolumne County tackle brush and timber that could stoke yet another megafire.
The grants are part of a burgeoning effort to thin out over-dense parts of the Sierra Nevada and other regions. It involves selective logging in some places, along with prescribed burning to mimic gentle fires that kept the fuels in check for millennia.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection announced $160 million in grants on Aug. 12 for 41 projects around the state.
One of Tuolumne County’s grants will launch work on 118,808 acres in the Stanislaus River watershed between roughly Columbia and Pinecrest. Several thousand people live in or near the zone, including part of the upper Highway 108 corridor. It also draws recreational visitors from the Modesto area and beyond.
The grant will create fuel breaks dividing the zone into several “pods” that keep fires from becoming huge. More funding will be sought in later years to do prescribed burning and tree thinning within each pod.
The grant was awarded to the county government and a coalition called Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions. The group includes the timber industry, environmental leaders and others concerned about the national park and adjacent national forest.
“The forest is excited to be part of an all hands, all lands approach working together across boundaries to accomplish the common goal of restoring and creating healthy, fire-resilient communities and landscapes,” said Jason Kuiken, supervisor of the Stanislaus National Forest, in a news release.
The other grant went to the American Forest Foundation for fuel reduction on about 5,000 acres of private timberland scattered east of Sonora.
Too many trees on the land
Experts generally agree that the Sierra is too dense with vegetation. The undergrowth used to be cleared frequently by flames sparked by lightning and Native Americans. A century-plus of fire suppression left thickets of grass, brush and trees that can explode into destructive blazes.
Tuolumne County’s worst was the Rim fire of 2013, spreading across 256,000 acres. At the time, it was the largest in the Sierra’s recorded history. The Dixie fire, now raging in the northern part of the range, has doubled the Rim’s acreage.
The situation prompted state and federal officials to agree last year to double fuel reduction to about 1 million acres in California annually.
Prescribed burning has long been used in Yosemite National Park, where logging is not allowed. It is becoming more common in other forested areas and on ranchland. The burning is done at times of year with low risk of the flames getting out of control.
Many environmentalists have opposed logging out of concern that it would take too many big trees. The industry has adapted to make lumber from smaller logs, including the two Sierra Pacific Industries sawmills in Tuolumne County. Small trees also can be chipped into fuel for biomass power plants, such as Pacific Ultrapower in Chinese Camp.
Fifteen environmental groups supported careful logging, along with biomass and prescribed burning, in an Aug. 2 letter to new Forest Service Chief Randy Moore. They include the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center, based in Twain Harte.
“That three-pronged forest management strategy has broad support from environmentalists, the timber industry, recreation interests and other forest stakeholders,” Executive Director John Buckley said by email Friday. “Now Congress needs to act on that broad support and to fund the Forest Service to do that needed, important work.”
Protecting watersheds
The coalition includes the Tuolumne River Trust. Its core mission is advocating for higher flows on this stream, but it also works on watershed health in the region.
Executive Director Patrick Koepele helped secure the new grant.
“Suffice it to say it has been a highly successful partnership that brings very diverse interests together to work on common ground solutions to improve forest health, reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire to our communities, and restore the land burned by the 2013 Rim Fire,” he said by email Friday.
The other $5 million will go to the American Forest Foundation for an effort involving small timberland owners in the county. It will reduce the wildfire risk on about 5,000 acres generally east of Sonora.
Cal Fire said the project will “moderate fire behavior/size at the scale of the landscape by engaging private landowners with technical and financial assistance.”
The Washington, D.C.,-based foundation plans to quantify the results and encourage other landowners to do similar projects.
This story was originally published August 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
