A decade later, lessons from Rim Fire

Mike Albrecht said, “Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions continues to emphasize proactive forest management policies and practices to get ahead of the problem, including “thin the forests before they burn; after thinning, reintroduce prescribed fire into the forest; continue to develop strategic fuel breaks; and when the forest does burn, salvage the burned timber while it retains value and then replant the burned areas as quickly as possible.”

John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte, is also active with Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions. An immediate lesson learned was that doing scattered piecemeal fuel reduction projects, timber sales, mastication of brush, and isolated prescribed burns simply wasn’t going to be enough to prevent more Rim Fire type catastrophes. “That led the YSS forest stakeholder group to come together stronger than ever before to work to get tens of millions of dollars in grants to supplement the work that the Forest Service was already planning to accomplish,” Buckley said.