Stanislaus National Forest gets $55.2 million to take a big bite out of wildfire fuel
The Stanislaus National Forest is getting $55.2 million for an unprecedented effort to reduce wildfire fuel.
The money will go to selective logging, prescribed burning and other work over three years on sites totaling about 41,000 acres. The project aims to create a mosaic that slows fires in a 245,000-acre zone that takes in Sonora, Twain Harte, Pinecrest and several other towns. It also could enhance the watershed for part of the Northern San Joaquin Valley.
The funding comes from the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package signed by President Joe Biden in November. The first $131 million for fuel reduction went to the Stanislaus and nine other national forests around the West.
“These efforts to reduce wildfire risk to communities located in these landscapes are just the beginning,” Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said in a news release. “... With each successive year, we will plan and implement more, continuing to reduce the risks associated with extreme wildfire for communities in these vulnerable areas.”
The money means more work for loggers and sawmill employees in Tuolumne County, where the timber industry has declined since the 1990s. Other crews will use prescribed burning to mimic the flames that indigenous people long employed to keep the forest understory open. In some places, heavy machinery will grind up brush and trees that are too small for the mills.
The thinning could mean fewer trees sucking up moisture and thus more runoff to water agencies, including the Oakdale and South San Joaquin irrigation districts on the Stanislaus River. And the work could protect spots that many Valley residents visit for camping, fishing, hiking and more.
The project grew out of a consensus that the forest has become too dense after a century-plus of suppressing small fires. The result is disasters like the Rim Fire of 2013, which scorched about 256,000 acres in the Tuolumne River watershed.
The federal money follows on a pair of $5 million state grants last August to do similar projects in the same zone. They came from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Diverse coalition backs project
The project has support from a coalition of local environmental, business and government leaders. It is called Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions because it deals with both the national forest and adjacent national park.
Among its members is John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte.
“YSS has been especially successful in getting millions of dollars in State of California grants that have been effectively put to work to do reforestation, fire restoration work and fuel reduction work in the local Stanislaus National Forest,” he said by email.
Environmentalists long had opposed logging out of concern that it took too many old-growth trees. The industry has adapted sawmills to make productive use of smaller timber. They include the Sierra Pacific Industries plants in Standard, a few miles east of Sonora, and Chinese Camp.
One ‘pod’ at a time
The upcoming project will start this spring with the creation of fuel breaks that divide the zone into “pods.” The idea is to keep small blazes from growing into megafires. Each pod will then get a specific set of measures to thin the fuel.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., issued a statement welcoming the Stanislaus funding and $31 million for a similar effort in the Tahoe National Forest.
“Climate change will continue to increase the frequency and severity of wildfires in California,” she said. “... That is why I’m glad the Biden administration is taking the threat of wildfire seriously.”
This story was originally published April 18, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
