Group works to keep south county fire safe

Maggie Beck/Union Democrat

Today, the SouthWest InterFace Team (SWIFT) has coordinated more than 15,000 acres of fuel treatments and 67 miles of fuel breaks in a 132,000-acre area to prevent raging wildfires.
 

“Southern Tuolumne County is a pretty hot area for fires ... we needed to do something,” James said.

Among others, the group is a collaboration between Cal Fire, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Yosemite National Park, Tuolumne County Fire Department, City and County of San Francisco, Yosemite Foothills Fire Safe Council, Tuolumne County, Groveland Community Services District and Pine Mountain Lake.

SWIFT brings these agencies together at regular meetings to plan for fire defense and share funding opportunities and ideas, James explained.

“A few of us got together, and it just kind of grew,” he said.

“Without everyone sitting down at one table and saying, ‘here’s our plan,’ these type of accomplishments wouldn’t be possible,” said county Supervisor John Gray, who represents the Groveland area. “It’s very beneficial ... I’ve been impressed with the cooperation.”

The main fuel breaks that have been established — Rim Truck, Wagner Ridge, Ponderosa, Tim Brush and Buckhorn — snake along ridge lines, around communities and follow roads. The breaks are designed to provide a first and sometimes last line of defense for 12 residential neighborhoods, including about 2,900 homes in Pine Mountain Lake and scattered cabins in Hells Hollow.

Many large fires have burned into the project area, including the Rogge, Moccasin, Creek, Hamm, Larson, Hasloe, Paper and, most recently, Telegraph fires.

In July and August of 2008, the Telegraph Fire burned into the project area in the lower southeast corner of the North Fork Merced River drainage, where fuel breaks established by the group south of Greeley Hill helped hold it at bay.

But many of the fuel breaks established in the group’s early years are now becoming overgrown, James said. Most of the group’s current and future plans consist of maintaining these established lines of defense and to support fuel treatments in the forest.

On Thursday, as James toured the fuel-filled forest in southern Tuolumne County, it was evident that mitigating fire danger for the area’s woodsy communities will be an ongoing process.

“This is something that’s never ending,” James said. “There’s always going to be bad fire seasons.”

For instance, a fuel break around Pine Mountain Lake still needs some work.

“It’s probably our highest priority,” James said.

Hells Hollow, a woodsy community off Highway 120, also needs fuel treatments.

“If anything got going in here, it’d probably be a done deal,” James said. “There’s a lot more to do.”    

James only faintly remembers being part of the first attack on the 1987 Stanislaus Complex Fire, which scorched almost 150,000 acres. But it and other fires he fought during his decades with the Forest Service left an impression.

“There’s been some interesting fires around here,” he said, adding that there will be more.