The report on forest conditions should have come as no surprise to the Eastern Sierra. Moisture levels in the national forests are very low and dropping with wildland fires predicted to hit
earlier in the season. The prospect of future forest closures is a possibility.
As if to punctuate the situation, Inyo National Forest Supervisor Lesley Yen gave her report to Inyo and Mono Supervisors remotely from the fire burning through New Mexico. Yen’s advice to those holding business permits: get your paperwork requesting exemptions to the closures done as soon as possible.
Staffers from the Bureau of Land Management and the Interagency Fire Management Office
provided the grim statistics: December delivered the least substantial rainfall ever in California;
the state’s snowpack is at 38-percent of normal with the Sierra Nevada at 4-percent; the water
content in vegetation is at 30-percent and dropping one to two months earlier than normal
while temperatures are climbing. The significance of fuel moisture is critical. The lower that
number the quicker a fire will burn.
The one small bit of better news: statistics on fire potential are better at higher elevations.
With fire conditions at a frightening high, Lance Rosen, assistant fire management officer with
Bishop’s BLM office, had even worse news: staffing is at 70- to 75-percent of normal. “With a
long, busy, smoky summer ahead of us, we should be fully prepared and staffed. That is not the
case,” he told the Supervisors.
In past years, Rosen said, nine engines are fully staffed seven days a week throughout the fire
season. This year, seven of those nine are staffed only five days a week. The high cost of living
and lack of affordable housing in the Eastern Sierra were cited as issues contributing to the
staffing shortages.
Yen outlined the Forest Service’s closure process, starting with Stage 1 ban on camp fires for
dispersed camping. Stage 2 would ban fires anywhere in the forest followed by full forest
closures. “I wish closures were a local decision,” Yen said, “but we have to look at the broader
context, at regional and national staffing.”
There are efforts to change, Yen said, with a shift toward more Hot Shot units, greater wage
parity and more fuel treatment, but “the shift is slower than we’d like.” In addition, the INF is
working on the mechanism for day use in the forest, modeled after the Toiyabe National Forest.
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So there’s talk of allowing non-profits to sell safe & sane fireworks? wow that would be a really bad idea. That opens the window for illegal fireworks sales, and it’s all down hill from there. If you want to buy fireworks I suggest moving to Palmdale.
But still,soon the money-making venture allowed to sell and set off fireworks in Inyo County.
An accident ( wildfire ) waiting to happen…
definitely would like USFS to recognize that most locals don’t have yards and need the forest for dog walking and recreation. A day time use only exception for locals for low risk activities is needed and reasonable.
“Exception for locals” So local illegals could access the national forest but U.S. Citizens from Ridgecrest could not? hmm, that’s wrong on many levels. Plus your suggestion sounds like a management nightmare and the USFS by closing the forest would be equivalent to failure to manage in the first place.
Closing access to our public lands is unacceptable. I have used the wilderness/national forests for my entire life and never started a wildfire. The logic used by government agencies in attempt justify denying people access to public lands is ludicrous. Punishing the vast majority of responsible people because of the actions of a few ignorant/irresponsible and or reckless people is not the solution. If we applied that logic to driving cars we should shut down highways because of the minority of reckless and intoxicated drivers. It’s time to tell the government to pound sand if they think they are going to steal another season of my time in the forest.
As for the climate change aspect to the drought and increased fire danger people need to wake the heck up already. There is massive climate engineering operations taking place over our skies for anyone with eyes to see. The government and our military are involved with these operations that are linked to California’s droughts. They spray all kinds of nano particulate metals including aluminum, barium, and strontium. These metals coat the forest and act as an incendiary dust making these fires rage like never before. They park high pressure domes off the coast of CA and prevent precipitation from falling here creating epic droughts. Then they put the blame on the average folks who want to hike/bike/recreate in the mountains as if we are some kind of terrorists.
Get with the times people. World War III has already stated and its government and big corporations vs the people.. left or right or in the middle it does not matter, you are nothing but a tool and commodity to them.
Let’s see….. closures are cheaper than hiring more staff, could that be it? Nah, it’s those careless local day hikers walking their dogs that are starting fires all over the place and families just trying to get away from it all. But hey, we’re tough here in Bishop, we can take more close downs, dead fish, high fuel prices, inflation, no work, no snow, no small businesses, so therefore it makes perfect sense to close down the forest to everybody all summer long as well. Again.
Absolutely no open flame campfires, okay, a good thing, but slamming everything down again? How much more of this can this area take? All because the Fed is too cheap to hire staff. Kinda makes me think they just don’t care.
No small businesses, while they were slowly dying off everyone ordering from Amazon finished them off. I regularly disperse came and have never had a fire. I go to bed when the sun sets and out of bed when it rises. What really pisses me off his people dumping the their black water in the forest while disperse camping. The USFS closing of the Forest is a complete failure on their part to properly manage the forest.
Enough is enough. Dispersed campers in the eastern Sierra have proven themselves too irresponsible to have the privilege of campfires. This type of recreation has jeopardized our towns far too many times to count since the pandemic occurred. Fires must be banned in order to protect nondangerous forms of recreation like hiking.
While I agree fires should not be allowed while disperse camping I urge you to take some responsibility and have defensible space around your home.
Yen says she wishes the closures could be a local decision but…no? REALLY? ? The county supervisors and towns people should be involved in these closure decisions as we can’t afford to be closed anymore. Is Yen going to supplement our businesses and county coffers to pay for all the county services they use? The county should use whatever leverage they have to get a larger voice in these plans to close the forest down. Here’s my comment from last year that’s still relevant today.
5 months ago
Inyo National Forest Supervisor Lesley Yen gave the Board of Supervisors a rundown on forest closure policies, put in place in the late summer of 2020 and 2021, explaining the decisions as a “last resort.”
-Why did the the feds exclude the county supervisors from the discussion about closing the forest before they started to habitually close the forest for the last two years in the first place? The county and the city’s adjacent to the INF should have been included in this discussion….isn’t the county one of their “partners “?
The county provides the fire and police dept., building dept., road dept., code enforcement and oversees the delivery of energy and medical support among many other important and valuable assets to the INF. I’m baffled by the snub to the county and residents. Most of their employees live in our towns and use most, if not all, of the county’s services, on a daily basis. Damaging our economy with closures hurts the county’s coffers; it takes money to run all of the county services and makes it harder for local business to survive.
We all care about and support our first responders and forest service personnel. I want to thank the county supervisors for addressing the INF closure issues for the residents of Inyo.
“Emergency Forest Closures” in two short years morphed into another tool in the tool box without public comment. Blanked restrictions throughout an entire forest should be limited to truly extraordinary emergencies. Build a graduated plan to maintain public safety and quit with the easy way out simply closing the forest.
Toiyabe National forest hasn’t been shut down the last two years. If so, only for a short time. Historically that forest has more major fires than the Inyo. Since they are both federally run, shouldn’t they both be governed the same? It shouldn’t matter that the Inyo’s main offices are in Ca., and the Toiyabes are not.
what can the Supes do to work with USFS to develop a strategy to mitigate economic impacts to private businesses on the Forest? Thinking resorts, pack stations, guides….?
Ya’ll have put on notice to make defensible space or else. Yikes
What evidence exists that once campfires are banned, trail closures add further protection?
Couldn’t agree more. The obvious fire hazards in Inyo Nat. Forest or obvious. Dense to moderately dense forests at middle elevation (6000-8000 ft) are particular places to be concerned about, especially where there are lots of beetle-killed dead tree standing. The Mammoth Scenic Loop is a good (actually bad) example. The high country (above 9000 ft) isn’t of great concern, as the fuel load is insufficient to support much spread from the inevitable occasional lightning strike.
Human-caused fires in the high Sierra don’t happen. The White Mountains also are pretty fire-safe as they are. Some intelligent discretion would be a very welcome change from the policy we have seen of “just shut everything down”. It’s a minor miracle we didn’t have a local fire disaster in 2020 when the campgrounds were all closed but dispersed camping was permitted.
I have a hard time accepting that “closures” are effective when the highway and the internet are open. At full employment, BLM does not have enough payroll dedicated to the Alabama Hills. Their response to huge increase of visitors has been to close the majority of the camp sites to overnight use. Closing campsites forces visitors to camp elsewhere which the BLM has no one to cover. Many visitors head into the Forrest instead, where they have no supervision at all, just like on BLM land.
Disneyland employs thousands of people to control the public in a similar size area to the Alabama Hills, the BLM pays for one. Failure is guaranteed.
Bankrupting permit holders will further damage our local economy and serve no purpose toward controlling fires.
The absence of public meetings, since the start of the pandemic, has left the agencies with far too little public oversite.
Closing access is how the Forest F Dummies deal with their challenges. Closures are proof of their failure to manage. I despise the agency with a passion.
Fewer people out there reduce the chances of a human caused fire?
Just a guess.
Here’s an abbreviated version of the last 10 years or more, based on my coverage when I worked for the Inyo Register. The Forest Service would put out fires very quickly which created a lot more burnable fuel. The Native Americans realized fires kept the forests healthy by taking out the density of the scrub brush and allowing nature to do its work. The strategy was to control and watch fires. That probably would have worked out well except for warmer temperatures and less rain–Climate Change/Global Warming, whatever you call it, elevated the fire danger enormously. Mammoth Lakes has its “donut” project–the forests around the town are being thinned. This would slow the pace and intensity of any fire and give firefighters a chance to get the fire under control. The scary part of Yen’s presentation was staffing to respond to fires. Tinner’s right re: human caused fire. Also, the FS probably doesn’t want campers to get caught in a forest fire–just guessing. Here’s an interesting bit of trivia: the matilija poppy (look like big fried eggs) seeds only germinate after they’ve been burned. I remember seeing a whole bunch of them in the Buttermilks after a brush fire. Nature’s amazing.
Where can I find a recording of this update? Zoom or YouTube link?
Oops–lost my place. Here’s the web address that should get you to the video. Go down the agenda to the 11 a.m. timed item. USFS/BLM. If you hit item 14, you should be able to get straight to the presentation. Lot of technical stuff from some of the presenters but the INF supervisor was pretty straight forward. https://inyococa.civicclerk.com/Web/Player.aspx?id=3146&key=-1&mod=-1&mk=-1&nov=0