To better monitor fire activity at the Pinnacles National
Monument, park staff is proposing a revised five-year fire
management plan.
To better monitor fire activity at the Pinnacles National Monument, park staff is proposing a revised five-year fire management plan.
Community members attended a meeting Tuesday to voice their concerns about the safety of visitors and continued well-being of the park, said Karen Dennis, environmental protection specialist at Pinnacles.
One of the major concerns discussed was the worst case scenario if a major fire were to break out, Dennis said.
“The worst case scenario is the whole park burns,” she said. “Our plan is let it burn. We could lose all the structures but our major concern is evacuating people and protecting life.”
The park’s policy has been to let a fire run its course because it can burn faster than fire crews could respond to the park located approximately 30 miles south of Hollister, Dennis said.
The park is covered with chaparral, a shrub-like substance that can be very flammable, but the possibility of the entire park burning is very slim, she said.
The last time a fire broke out in 1998 it burned almost 3,000 acres of the total 24,000, Dennis said.
“There’s so much rock and open space that a fire stops when it gets to the ridge limit,” she said.
The new plan, which is almost identical to the old one that was first implemented in 1986, would also consider creating emergency safe spaces inside the park if a fire occurred, and gives the park the opportunity to use prescribed burns if officials decide it is warranted, she said.
“If we used prescribed fire it would only be in a very small area for weed management,” Dennis said. “But we don’t have any plans for that.”
Some parks plan burns to keep the vegetation fresh, but because a fire occurs on the average every nine to 10 years naturally, the park has no need to plan one.
“Nature continues to do a good job of giving a good mosaic of plant life and age,” she said. “Some areas are brand new, some are old – it makes different patterns which is a natural phenomenon.”
Another public meeting about the new plan will be held in September, and Dennis expects the plan to be finalized sometime in December, she said.
For more information about the Pinnacles or to be a part of the planning process, call Karen Dennis at (831) 389-4485, or e-mail comments at Ka************@np*.gov
