|
Letter from the Superintendent
 United
States Department of the Interior
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Yosemite National Park
P. O. Box 577
Yosemite, California 95389
IN REPLY REFER TO:
Y1427 (YOSE)
Dear Friends:
I am pleased to present to you the Final Yosemite Fire Management
Plan/Environmental Impact Statement. It represents a major effort by the
public and park staff, and one that will greatly benefit Yosemite
National Park and its neighbors.
Fire management is a complex and crucial subject, and one that requires
a great deal of study, planning and commitment to action. The ecosystems
of Yosemite National Park evolved under the influence of fire, and you
could almost say they cannot live without it. Fire is needed to reduce
fuels, maintain the diversity and structure of plant communities, and
even open the seed cones of species such as giant sequoia. But fire
cannot be taken lightly. There are risks involved, and there are
benefits to be realized. Simply put, fire management is among the most
important and difficult of things we do in managing Yosemite National
Park.
The attached Final Yosemite Fire Management Plan/Environmental Impact
Statement is a product of the discussions we’ve had with the public and
local, state and federal cooperating agencies, and of the professional
input of the park’s fire and resource management staff. The outlined
fire management program is also a product of evolution. The program at
Yosemite is not a new one. It has benefited from over thirty years of
implementation and refinement, research and monitoring, learning and
doing. Revision processes, such as this one, give us a chance to revisit
old issues, discuss how things are done, improve the ways of doing them,
improve our communication with the public, and sort through the diverse
public needs that drive fire management decisions. Air quality-related
issues, for example, are difficult, but refinements have been made in
our program and in our processes for communicating with the public and
other agencies.
Changes were made between draft and final. For your ease of reference,
these are described in the Executive Summary, and again in the Purpose
and Need chapter.
To those of you who contributed comments, attended public meetings, and
met with us—thank you. You have my appreciation for considering the
draft and offering your input.
I hope you will remain involved as we continue in our implementation of
the Yosemite fire management program.
Sincerely,
Michael Tollefson
Superintendent
|
