Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
How Years of Tree Thinning Saved Shaver Lake Area from Creek Fire Devastation
News
By News
Published 3 years ago on
November 11, 2020

Share

[aggregation-styles]

Subscription

Within days of sparking on Sept. 4, California’s Creek Fire was powerful enough to produce its own pyrocumulonimbus — a thunderhead of wind, rain, smoke and fire. The mushroom-cloud-like plume was the largest ever seen in the U.S., a monumental illustration of a catastrophic fire season and of the scale of loss below: tens of thousands of acres burning in the Sierra National Forest, at the southern end of the mountains John Muir called the Range of Light.

Now the largest single-ignition fire in state history, the Creek Fire is still burning, consuming huge swaths of that mixed-conifer landscape every day, at one point traveling an unprecedented 15 miles in one day. But a few rare spots have been spared. One is a cut of land just east and south of Shaver Lake. It is a stark contrast with the nearly 400,000 acres of forest to the north and west that have burned so severely that much of the landscape, said Kent Duysen, the owner of a nearby sawmill, looks like a “nuclear site.”

But around Shaver Lake, years of strategic tree-thinning and prescribed burning by forward-thinking foresters likely made the difference. “It’s because of the fuel reduction we did. That was the only reason that those lands survived,” said John Mount, a retired forester for Southern California Edison.

Read More →

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

Rise of the Anti-“Woke” Democrat

DON'T MISS

High-Level Saudi Visit Follows Multimillion-Dollar Foreign Influence Operation

DON'T MISS

Iran and Russia Move to Fill Diplomatic Vacuum in Afghanistan

DON'T MISS

Pelosi’s Husband Locked In $5.3 Million From Alphabet Options

DON'T MISS

Experts Reportedly See Major Damage in Attack on Iran Centrifuge Plant

DON'T MISS

Opinion: School Choice Marches Ahead

DON'T MISS

Zakaria: Americans Care About History Because the Stakes Are High

DON'T MISS

California Democrats Are Reliably Pro-Labor. But One Union Is Testing Their Patience.

DON'T MISS

The Tightrope Walk Democrats Have Ahead on Two Separate Infrastructure Bills

DON'T MISS

Bill Barr on Trump’s Election Fraud Claims: “It Was All Bullsh*t”

No data was found

Facebook News Tab Will Soon Be Unavailable as Meta Scales Back News and Political Content

15 hours ago

Stock Market Today: Wall Street Rises to More Records to Close Out Its Latest Winning Month

15 hours ago

A Fresno County First: Kerman Council Passes Amended Gaza Cease-Fire Resolution

15 hours ago

UN Top Court Orders Israel to Open More Land Crossings for Aid into Gaza

16 hours ago

How Involved Is Southern California Consulting Firm in FUSD Executive Dealings?

16 hours ago

Biden’s Fundraiser with Obama and Clinton Nets a Record $25 Million, His Campaign Says

17 hours ago

Fresno Unified’s Self-Protection Racket Is Hurting Our Kids

17 hours ago

Rockin’ Out or Laughing, the Valley Has Its Pick of Weekend Events

17 hours ago

Ex-Correctional Officer at Women’s Prison in California Sentenced for Sexually Abusing Inmates

20 hours ago

Caitlin Clark and Iowa Draw Nearly 5 Million Viewers for Second-Round NCAA Win

20 hours ago

PGA HOPE at Riverside Golf Course Introduces Military Veterans to the Game

PGA HOPE, now underway at Fresno’s Riverside Golf Course, is designed to introduce golf to veterans and active duty military members t...

14 hours ago

PGA HOPE at Fresno's Riverside Golf Course
14 hours ago

PGA HOPE at Riverside Golf Course Introduces Military Veterans to the Game

15 hours ago

Cronenworth’s Big Hit Helps Lift the Padres to a 6-4 Win Over Melvin’s Giants

15 hours ago

Shohei Ohtani Reaches 3 Times in Home Debut as the Dodgers Rout the Cardinals 7-1

15 hours ago

Facebook News Tab Will Soon Be Unavailable as Meta Scales Back News and Political Content

15 hours ago

Stock Market Today: Wall Street Rises to More Records to Close Out Its Latest Winning Month

15 hours ago

A Fresno County First: Kerman Council Passes Amended Gaza Cease-Fire Resolution

16 hours ago

UN Top Court Orders Israel to Open More Land Crossings for Aid into Gaza

16 hours ago

How Involved Is Southern California Consulting Firm in FUSD Executive Dealings?

MENU

CONNECT WITH US

Search

Send this to a friend