As Northern California wildfires continue to spread, federal officials announced the closure of nine national forests for the next two weeks in an effort to provide for the safety of firefighters and the public.
The temporary closure goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. Sunday and is scheduled to last through 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 6, according to the Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The order was signed Thursday by Jennifer Eberlien, the regional forester for the region, and shared Friday by CalFire.
The closure is designed to also relieve some strain on firefighter resources throughout the country, officials said.
During the closure, the public will not be allowed into the following national forests:
— Tahoe National Forest;
— Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit;
— Plumas National Forest;
— Lassen National Forest;
— Mendocino National Forest;
— Klamath National Forest;
— Six Rivers National Forest;
— Shasta-Trinity National Forest;
— Modoc National Forest.
The order exempts the following individuals under specific circumstances:
— Residents of the national parks, to the extent necessary to access their residences;
— Owners or lessees of land, to the extent necessary to access their land;
— Persons with Forest Service Permit No. FS-7700-48 (Permit for Use of Roads, Trails,
or Areas Restricted by Regulation or Order), specifically exempting them from this
order;
— Any federal, state, or local officer, or member of an organized rescue or fire fighting
force in the performance of an official duty;
— Persons with a Forest Service special use authorization for an electric transmission
line, an oil or gas pipeline, communications site, or any other non-recreation special
use;
— Recreational activities, such as harvesting timber or forest products or grazing livestock.
— Persons engaged in a business, trade, or occupation are not exempt from the prohibitions listed above, but may use National Forest System roads to the extent necessary to carry out their business, trade, or occupation.
A violation of these prohibitions is punishable by a fine of not more than $5,000 for an individual or $10,000 for an organization, or imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or both.
13 comments
Once a fire is allowed to burn a couple of hours it will not stop burning until it runs out of fuel. California should have high tech fire detectors all over the state in vulnerable areas. They then need twenty 747 tanker planes that are on the ready to put the fire out in its infancy. Five in Redding, Five in Sacramento, Five in Bakersfield, and Five in San Bernadino. Or we can keep on doing what we are doing and burn down one forest and town at a time.
Silly thought Ricardoh.
We don’t have money for that! If we spent it on that, how in the world would we be able to support all the illegal aliens? We have our priorities set. #1. Support people who are here because they are breaking the law. Homeless & disturbed Americans (especially veteran’s whose lives were destroyed in service of our country), well, we’ll let them rot!, forest management, doing something about our water and (safe) energy supply, those are cans we will continue to kick down the street! Long live the illegal!
Just a quibble here. National Parks are not National Forests. National Forests have been closed. National Parks would be Sequoia/Kings canyon, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, and a few others.
National Parks or National Forests?
Important message to law breakers. Stay home and rob stores. More profitable, and no significant penalties
My niece had just moved into my brother-in-law’s place in Grizzly Flats a week ago. My bro moved and was renting it to them; they were planning to buy and raise their family there. They were barely getting settled in when they had to evacuate with whatever they could grab. The entire home was reduced to ashes. Thankful they got out with what they could, but now have to start over with nothing. This is a serious situation for many people.
Of the nine properties listed, NONE are National Parks, they’re all National Forests. Big difference.
There are several reasons for the devastation of these fires, but a critical one is the total mismanagement of the forests that has allowed the fuel to build up on the forest floor without periodic clearing or smaller burns. There is so much fuel that it is virtually impossible to put out a fire once it gets started. Contributing to this is the damage done by the bark beetles that has seriously damaged or killed thousands of acres of trees, making them more vulnerable to fire and making the fires more aggressive.
CA is millions of acres/2+ decades behind in regards to brush-clearing/forest thinning…the ONLY time- and financially-feasible way to close that gap is an aggressive program of controlled burns. But this state is run by morons with no shortage of fellow morons who support/elect them, so it won’t happen.
+1
hopefully the #RecallGavinNewsom will pass 🙂
Maybe some of you should re-read. Closing National Forests. Due to this National parks will also be closed. I’m pretty sure US Forestry knows more than you guys.
This might PO a whole lot of deer hunters/fishermen/women, I would guess………
I don’t think the problem is with their name I think they are burning up.
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