Smoke To Fill Skies Over Big Trees State Park Again
San Andreas, CA – Travelers along Highway 4 and the communities along it will see smoke in the skies over Big Trees State Park once again this week.
CAL FIRE, in cooperation with Big Trees State Park and Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI), will burn northeast of Arnold in Tuolumne County both inside the park and on the SPI South Park Vegetation Management Plan. The latest burn will be igniting on Thursday (Nov. 21). CAL Fire Division Chief Charlie Blankenheim details, “We’ll be burning just about five or six acres on Big Trees State Park and then about 50 acres on SPI, just south of the park as the projects touch each other.”
The burn, which will be done mostly during daylight hours, will continue through Monday, November 25th, weather permitting. Fire activity may also be visible at night and smoke may be visible for several days following the burn.
A total of 382 acres are targeted in the prescribed burns that began this month and will run through the fall, as reported here. Blankenheim updates the earlier burns, “Everything went really good, good understory burn. There are some pockets where some very heavy fuels were attached to some tree mortalities, but for the most part, we’ve been well within the prescription and well within our target of what we’re trying to get done.”
The burns are designed to reduce ground-level fuels to create a more fire resilient environment and in turn improve the forest health and habitat, according to CAL Fire. Resources on the scene will include fire engines, fire crews, bulldozers and water tenders from the various cooperating agencies.
