A firefighter ignites piles near a park community under prescribed conditions.

Yosemite Fire Management Plan - 2004

The Yosemite National Park Fire Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement guides the implementation of a complex fire management program. The program includes wildland fire suppression, wildland fire used to achieve natural and cultural resource benefits, fire prevention, prescribed fire, fire ecology research, and the use of mechanical methods to reduce and thin vegetation in and around communities.

One goal of the program is to reduce the threat of wildland fire to public safety and to the park’s wildland urban interface communities as well as to its natural and cultural resources. Another goal is to return the influence of natural fire to park ecosystems so that they are restored to, and maintain in, as natural a condition as possible.

The Fire Management Plan /Environmental Impact Statement proposes to reduce risk to park wildland urban interface communities within six to eight years, and to restore park ecosystems within 15 to 20 years. Some of the work which will be done to reduce the risk of unwanted wildland fire in and adjacent to wildland urban interface communities will involve mechanical methods. The primary methods to reduce wildland fire risk and to restore park ecosystems, however, will be prescribed and wildland fire.

This plan has been separated out into a number of PDF documents.

To download in PDF format, click the chapter title below. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, you may download it for free here.

Table of Contents (174kb)
Executive Summary (220kb)
Letter from the Superintendent (39kb)  
Abstract (35kb)

Chapters

Chapter 1: Purpose and Need (276kb)  

Chapter 2: Alternatives (737kb)

Chapter 3: Affected Environment (711kb)

Chapter 4: Environmental Consequences (237kb)

Alternative A: No Action (630kb)

Alternative B: Aggressive Action (671kb)

Alternative C: Passive Action (471kb)

Alternative D: Multiple Action (489kb)

Chapter 5: Wild and Scenic Rivers (188kb)

Chapter 6: Consultation and Coordination (155kb)

Chapter 7: List of Preparers (72kb)

Appendices

Appendix 1 - References Cited

Appendix 2 - Glossary (105kb)

Appendix 3 - Wildland Fire Response, Planning, and Implementation Procedures (294kb)

Appendix 4 - Smoke Communications Strategy (100kb)

Appendix 5 - Considering Cumulative Impacts (326kb)

Appendix 6 - Multi-Year Prescribed Fire Schedule (235kb)

Appendix 7 - National Historic Preservation Act Consultation (39kb)

Appendix 8 - Cultural Resources (17kb)

Appendix 9 - USFWS Biological Opinion (247kb)

Appendix 9A - El Portal Prescribed Burn Rotation Plan & Elderberry Plants (36kb)

Appendix 9B - Monitoring Plan: Elderberry Plants within the El Portal Wildland-Urban Interface (54kb)

Appendix 9C - Mitigation Measures Common To All Action Alternatives (103kb)

Appendix 10 - Fire Management and the Vegetation Management Plan (51kb)

Appendix 11 - Prescribed Fire Units (122kb)

Appendix 12 - Responses to Public Comments (1322kb)

Appendix 13 - Minimum Requirement Decision Process for Administrative Actions in Wilderness (111kb)

Maps