Traffic and Fire

Arnold, CA...California State Parks, in cooperation with CAL FIRE, plans to conduct prescribed burning at Calaveras Big Trees State Park (SP) in June. Work may begin as soon as June 3, and burning will take 3 to 5 days. If weather, air quality, or vegetation conditions are not conducive for burning or smoke dispersal, State Parks will reschedule the treatment.

The planned fire treatment will cover up to 157 acres and will include areas along the Walter W. Smith Parkway and the park’s eastern boundary near the lower edge of Big Trees Village. Visitors should expect possible closures during the prescribed burn and one lane of traffic control on the Walter W. Smith Parkway.

Although prescribed burns produce significantly less smoke than wildfires, campers and communities near Calaveras Big Trees SP including Arnold, Dorrington, Big Trees Village, White Pines, Blue Lake Springs, and Love Creek may experience smoke from the burning operations. The department plans and coordinates these burns with the Calaveras and Tuolumne County Air Districts to minimize the smoke in surrounding communities.

Prescribed burning is one of the tools used by the department for vegetation management to increase the resilience of the forest. Forest management and prescribed fires help restore and maintain a complex forest community, reduce hazardous fuel loads, improve wildlife habitat, restore nutrients to the soil, protect park infrastructure, and reduce the chance of a catastrophic wildfire.

The planned prescribed burn at Calaveras Big Trees SP is funded by the State of California through the Wildfire and Forest Resiliency Program (WFRP). WFRP expands on critical land management that California State Parks has been carrying out for decades and supports increasing the pace and scale of fuels treatments so that California’s State Park System can become an example of resilient ecosystems maintained through active stewardship.