Local fire safe council celebrated for mitigation efforts

According to Don Norton, chair of the NFH Awards Committee, this is the first time such a team has received three separate awards, which recognize the outstanding public/private partnership created between the U.S. Forest Service and the WLDLFSC. Over two-and-a-half years, this team conceived and developed a 1,700-acre fuel reduction project around Wrights and Dark Lakes and obtained full NEPA environmental approvals. The project is shovel ready and the USFS grants team is seeking the first phase of $5 million in funding.

• It is fully approved, non-controversial and shovel ready. 

• The heavily used Wrights Lake Recreational Area serves a wide variety of users. It contains three campgrounds, including an equestrian campground, day use areas with hiking, biking, boating, swimming and fishing, and a popular OHV trail for off road users. It also provides western access to the Desolation Wilderness, the most heavily used wilderness area in the U.S.  Finally, it contains 75 cabins, some with historic designation, that are between 60 and 100 years old. 

• Two thirds of the Eldorado National Forest has been burned by wildfires in the last 10 years (398,000 of 596,724 acres). The Wrights Lake Fuel Reduction project (1,713 acres) is adjacent to the much larger adjacent Reservoir Fuel Reduction Project (20,634 acres) which includes Ice House Reservoir and Union Valley Reservoir.  The combination of these projects will mitigate wildfire risk to some heavily used, high value recreational assets in the Crystal Basin that to date have been largely untouched by wildfire.   

• This project will provide economic and environmental protection to water users in Crystal Basin and beyond, since the lakes and streams within its boundaries are part of the headwaters of the South Fork of the American River. These waterways provide clean and pure water that is essential for SMUD’s hydroelectric facilities ($1 billion invested) and for residential, commercial and agricultural customers in El Dorado County and Sacramento. 

• This project has become an exemplary model of a public/private partnership. It was designed to be replicable and can pave the way for fuel reduction work in other cabin tracts and forests. The Association at Silver Lake is pursuing a similar fuel reduction project through the Amador Fire Safe Council. 

For more information about the Wrights Lake Forest Health and Hazardous Fuel reduction project visit fs.usda.gov/project/?project=63479.

The Wrights and Dark Lake Fire Safe Council is the only fire safe council in the County that is 100% on national forest land. It operates under the umbrella of the El Dorado County Fire Safe Council. The EDCFSC has provided numerous valuable tools including education, training and a free chipping program to help 75 Wrights and Dark Lake cabin owners create defensible space on their lots and fire harden their cabins.