The Forest Service is getting nearly $500 million to help fight the wildfire crisis. Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the investment this week, aimed at expanding the agency’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy before catastrophic fires reach communities bordering national forest land.The agency will spend roughly $400 million – funded through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – on the 21 priority landscapes it has already identified across the West as the places most likely to burn hot and burn hard. Another $100 million funds something newer: the Collaborative Wildfire Risk Reduction Program, which brings tribes, local communities, and partner organizations into the planning process across 24 states before the work begins.
Wildfire smoke doesn’t respect state lines. Smoke from a fire in the Sierra can shut down flights in Seattle.
On June 21, 2008 a lightning strike ignited the Basin Complex Fire, a wildfire that swept through 162,818 acres near Big Sur, forcing evacuations, and burning most of the Ventana Wilderness area. The fire destroyed much of the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park located the western slope of the Santa Lucia Mountains, and severely damaged the Pfeiffer Falls Trail, an easy 1.5 mile out-and-back trail with views of redwoods and Pfeiffer Falls.
2020 was a difficult year for travelers, wanderers, adventurers, and explorers here in California. I did get out – sometimes with groups, sometimes furtively by myself – and was rewarded with solitude, silence, and freedom within the great cathedrals of nature that California offers from the deserts to the beaches, to the mountains and deep forests.