Pioneer, CA…Calaveras Healthy Impact Product Solutions (CHIPS), working together with the Eldorado National Forest, is starting work on the View 88 Fuels Reduction and Prescribed Fire Readiness Project to protect communities, forests, critical habitat, and water resources from wildfire. The work is funded by a $999,196 Sierra Nevada Watershed Improvement Program (WIP) from the Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) that was awarded in June 2020.

“We are very excited about this project,” said Regine Miller, CHIPS Executive Director. “After the contracting process, work is expected to begin in mid-July 2021 and continue until December 2022. This grant is intended to create work for local contractors and CHIPS hand crews which achieves CHIPS goals of boosting the local forest stewardship economy.”

Utilizing funds from Proposition 68, the California Drought, Parks, Climate, Coastal Protection and Outdoor Access for All Act of 2018, the View 88 Project will protect public forest land within the Mokelumne and Cosumnes river watersheds by reducing fire hazard along Highway 88. The values to be protected include small rural communities in eastern Amador County. Reducing wildfire risk also reduces the risk of sedimentation which protects downstream utility districts, such as the Amador Water Agency and East Bay Municipal Utility District.

“Restoring the beneficial role of fire in the Sierra Nevada is essential to building and sustaining resilient forests,” said SNC Executive Officer Angela Avery. “The View 88 project creates a strategic fuel break that protects communities and will allow land managers to safely reintroduce fire to landscape, two priorities of our Watershed Improvement Program.”

The View 88 Fuels Reduction and Prescribed Fire Readiness Project is located in the Amador Ranger District of the Eldorado National Forest (ENF) in a series of units along Highway 88 beginning approximately five miles east of Pioneer, CA extending east for 23 miles (see map below). The project ranges between 3,900’ to 7,700’ in elevation and contains various forest types, including Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer and red fir stands.

“Our work with CHIPS and the Sierra Nevada Conservancy is a great example of how we are using a Shared Stewardship Framework to get more work done across the landscape,” said Forest Supervisor Jeff Marsolais. “ We all share the goal of restoring forest health so fire can return to its natural role. This project is another important step toward forest resilience.”

Project activities will include removing forest fuels up to a quarter mile off the highway’s center line from at least 412 acres, creating a wide fuel break in a strategic ridgetop location and preparing the area for future prescribed fire. The units identified in the project will utilize a combination of grapple piling and hand thinning to remove excess ground fuels and small-diameter trees. Following completion of the project, the ENF will manage these roadside stands with prescribed fire to maintain healthy forest stand structure and keep roadside fuel loading low to ensure a safe evacuation route and protect the surrounding communities and watersheds.

As a non-profit organization that specializes in vegetation management in Calaveras and Amador counties, CHIPS is intimately familiar with local forest management needs. CHIPS is a community-driven organization and has a long history of hiring Native Americans to carry out its work. The organization deploys crews to work on public lands, including four National Forests, Bureau of Land Management and Yosemite National Park lands, and also on private lands. CHIPS hires contractors from locally distressed communities which have been heavily affected by the closing of numerous lumber mills as recently as the early 2000’s. CHIPS crews and local contractors will be utilized whenever possible to implement the SNC grant, creating new job opportunities, and helping to establish a forest restoration and stewardship economy.