Fremont Fuel Reduction

The Fremont Fuel Reduction Project is approximately 0.75 miles northwest of the town of Mariposa. This project will treat approximately 66 acres of publicly-owned land adjacent to the John C. Fremont Hospital and the CAL FIRE MMU HQ. Multiple and recent past wildfires have wreaked havoc in Mariposa County; the County has an EXTREME risk of wildfire over the next 30 years. The purpose of the project is to modify the structure and continuity of hazardous fuels via mastication and prescribed burning to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, while protecting local structures/infrastructure and the community of Mariposa. The Project contains two Class III watercourses which occur on the east side of the project area. The project area vegetation consists of a Gray Pine overstory with a hardwood mid-story component of Live oak, Blue oak and Buckeye. In the understory are shrubs/brush heavy to whitethorn, toyon, and whiteleaf manzanita. Ground vegetation includes poison oak and grasses in openings. Management goals include restoring forest species composition and structure following large scale, stand-replacing disturbance events such as quick-moving fires or slow-moving insect outbreaks and prevention of catastrophic wildfire. The silvicultural strategy is to retain healthy trees – especially the Blue oak - to create a shaded fuelbreak condition with tree crowns spaced for full utilization of available sunlight, water and nutrients. The majority of dead and decadent stands of shrubs/brush and other ladder fuels will be treated. Treatment methods include mastication as the initial treatment and prescribed fire as the maintenance treatment. Once implementation work on the project is completed, the goal is to maintain the treated area into perpetuity under the current CEQA document.