Wrapping Up Pile Burning On Thousands Of Forest Acres

Sonora, CA – Stanislaus National Forest crews have successfully burned thousands of acres of piles in the Mi-Wok/Summit Ranger District.

Most of the piles burned were between the Highway 108 SnoPark and Pinecrest, with additional piles completed behind Strawberry. Since the beginning of November, working whenever weather and resource conditions allowed, crews have burned nearly 1,900 acres of piles.

“Even with recent budget constraints, our crews have made every effort, when conditions were right, to chip away at the more than 60,000 piles across the forest,” said Mi-Wok/Summit Ranger Shawn Winstead. “I continue to be in awe of the dedication and professionalism of our fire crews.”

Many of these crews have recently returned to the forest after working a grueling fire season with more than 8.1 million acres of federal land burned across the nation.

“With the 48 acres we were able to accomplish yesterday (Wednesday, Dec. 4), unless we get some sort of major weather event, we’re most likely done with pile burning for this season,” said District Fire Management Officer Fuels Dan Guse. ”That said, we’ve been able to get some really good work done on the ground, and I think that speaks volumes to the amount of planning and pre-work that’s gone into all this, so when we had the resources, we were able to get the work done.”