P.O. Box 577
Yosemite, CA 95389
www.nps.gov/yose/news

209 372-0529 phone
209 372-0371 fax

June 7, 2005
For Immediate Release

Yosemite National Park Prepares for Fire Season

Yosemite National Park Fire Management is preparing for a fire season after a long, wet winter in the Sierra Nevada. Seasonal fire employees have returned to the park, as has the park's fire helicopter.

The high level of precipitation could moderate the fire season in the mountains. However, it may increase fire potential in the lower elevations as the heavier concentrations of grass and brush dry as the summer progresses.

A series of late season storms delayed the spring prescribed fire window. However, fire managers plan to take advantage of the moist conditions in the late spring to undertake multiple prescribed fires throughout the park. These projects include Wawona, El Portal, Hodgdon Meadows, Gin Flat, and Yosemite Valley. Later season projects include the Mariposa Grove, Aspen Valley, Yosemite West, the south boundary, and Gin Flat.

Mechanical treatment on the Wawona Road (Highway 41) will continue this year. Visitors will notice the "miles of piles" lining the Wawona Road and the Big Oak Flat Road (Highway 120) this summer. This is part of a fuel reduction project that will help firefighters make a safer stand at the road in the event of an unwanted fire. It also provides a safer route for visitors and residents in the case of an evacuation. Trees smaller than 20 inches in diameter at breast height and brush are being thinned within 200 feet of the road. These piles will be burned when conditions permit.

Approved projects for this year total almost 5,000 acres. However, only segments of these projects are likely to be completed. For example, roughly 1,500 acres of the Gin Flat project is expected to be completed in 2005. The execution of burns depends on air quality conditions, workload, fuel moistures, weather, and other factors.

Fire has been, and will continue to be, a natural process that shapes Yosemite's landscape. Wildland fire can not be prevented. However, under favorable conditions, fire can be used as a beneficial tool. Fire managers may use prescribed fire or wildland fire use to reduce the damage from unwanted fires. A fire-use fire is a lightning ignited fire that the park manages to reduce the risk of destructive fire as well as obtain the ecological benefits from fire as long as the park has the resources to manage it and the fire is not a threat to life or property.

Smoke is an unavoidable result of fire. While the park continues to use fire as a management tool, smoke will be a by-product. Every effort to minimize smoke impacts to visitors and residents is made. Fire managers work closely with county air quality boards as well as state and federal agencies. People with respiratory problems should use caution when exerting themselves in smoky areas.

Residents and visitors are advised to take precautions to minimize smoke impacts to health. Please, take extra care while driving near the burn area by observing all warning signs posted along the roadway, and using your headlights when smoke is on the road.

Residents and visitors can also take steps to protect the park, and their homes, and have an enjoyable visit to the park. Visitors to Yosemite National Park can help prevent unwanted fire. Each year campfires, cigarettes, and human carelessness cause unwanted fires in Yosemite. Build small campfires in established campfire rings, never leave a campfire unattended, and extinguish campfires completely.

Yosemite fire staff is working to help make Yosemite a safe place to live, visit, and work during fire season as well as returning a natural event to the park's landscape.

-NPS-