You know, this is a fire-adapted ecosystem in the Sierra Nevada, so a lot of the prehistoric sites have burned over
hundreds of times in the past 7000 years. What's different is that 150 years
of fire suppression which means that the fuel loading has built up, so now we're seeing higher severity fires
that might actually damage those resources further, so a lot of what I'm doing is evaluating what is different about
today's fuel loading than what it would have looked like 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 500 years ago, or a thousand years ago.
The historic component is a lot trickier.
Those things, because the sites are a lot younger, those things haven't decayed or disappeared,
as some of the things that we might find in a prehistoric site have already done. So they are vulnerable to the direct impacts
of fire. Like glass can melt, leather boots can burn up,
the wooden remains of cabins can disappear, the metal can melt.
So those things are definitely susceptible to the impacts of fire.
Historic-wise, we've had a long historic presence here. For example, the cavalry that first administered the park;
a lot of the first homesteaders in the park and then lot of the early park management,
left records and archeological sites are in evidence on the ground, and so we look at that - things like historic tree blazes, historic
structures, cabins that have now collapsed and and have become archaeological sites.
And so, what I'm doing right now is looking at what's proposed, what survey coverage we have in there and what
am I going to need to do next spring to get ready for those burns, because my job is not to hold up the fire management
program and like I said, fire is a natural part in the ecosystem it needs to be on land here
and I believe that; and I think that if we exclude fire were actually doing the resource in disfavor by allowing this fuel loads
to continue to accumulate and possibly impact the resource greater later.
So some of the projects that we're looking at are prescribed burns in Yosemite Valley itself. We've got some large-scale
prescribed burns that we'd like to continue to do around the communities of Wawona, Foresta,
El Portal, and then up north the Hodgkin community as well
to try and protect those communities should fire come into the park from outside.
The fire archaeology thing is is interesting to people. People are always asking me "what is that?"
And I always say, well, it's like two things that you wouldn't expect to bring together like jello and power tools. You know what does a
fire archaeologist do? So I do a lot of outreach. I want people to understand the Park Service is trying to take into account
its impacts of its actions on the cultural resources, and especially the national parks, where that's our job to preserve and protect
those things for future generations. That's our mission statement and I want them to know that that we're actively trying to do that.
And I want them to know what we're trying to do. One of the things I like working for the Park Service is that outreach, that
that interpretive component of what we do. Any chance I get, if folks are curious about what I'm doing, I like to try and let them know.
Because, frankly, I think I have the coolest job in the world. I was saying earlier, I love about working
here is the opportunities to do so many different kinds of things.
I get to light a little bit of fire on the prescribed burns, I get put out a little bit of fire. I get to walk around the woods and
look for old stuff. It's pretty neat to bring those things together and have this. I don't think there's any place else in world where
you can have the opportunity to all these different things at once.