View 88 Fuels Reduction and Prescribed Fire Readiness Project
PIONEER, Calif, Apr 14, 2021 - 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.
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