Road Assessment After Rim Fire

Some Tuolumne County roads sustained damage due to the Rim Fire.

Duke York, Deputy Director of Tuolumne County Roads was Thursday’s KVML “Newsmaker of the Day”. He was joined by Darrin Grossi, Executive Director of the Tuolumne County Transportation Council.

Roads that were in the immediate area of the Rim Fire include Evergreen Road, Buchanan Road, Harden Flat and Ferretti Road, Aspen Valley, Kings Road, Clements Road, Golden Arrow and Fish Hatchery.

According to York, some of these roads remain closed and will not be open for quite some time.

Engineers and county road crews are assessing the damage to the surface of the road, ditches, guardrails, smashed culverts and other items.

When winter arrives, some of the creeks, streams and rivers could have a major impact to some of these local roads due to soil damage from the fire.

The dead trees near road sides, that could easily fall during winter weather, will not help matters either.  

Grossi stresses the Yosemite Area Regional Transit System (YARTS) has resumed service for the next couple of weeks.

Grossi says, “Over all the twice a day YARTS service (public bus rides from various Tuolumne County locations to Yosemite National Park) is doing pretty well. As long as we have ridership, we will continue to provide the service through the end of the month. For more information click http://www.yarts.com .”

Public transportation was used to transport some people who were under either evacuation orders and advisories. Two dogs, two birds and one cat were also moved out of the evacuation areas. A YARTS bus was used to help transport a couple of hundred campers from some of the campgrounds that were under evacuation orders.  

The “Newsmaker of the Day” is heard every weekday morning on AM 1450 KVML at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45am.