ROAD DAMAGE FROM THE RIM FIRE or WHY SOME ROADS ARE STILL CLOSED

September 12, 2013    06:00 am   Mark Truppner, MML Reporter 

 

Some Tuolumne County roads sustained damage due to the Rim Fire.

Duke York, Deputy Director of Tuolumne County Roads was Thursday's KVML "Newsmaker of the Day". He was joined by Darrin Grossi, Executive Director of the Tuolumne County Transportation Council.

Roads that were in the immediate area of the Rim Fire include Evergreen Road, Buchanan Road, Harden Flat and Ferretti Road, Aspen Valley, Kings Road, Clements Road, Golden Arrow and Fish Hatchery.
According to York, some of these roads remain closed and will not be open for quite some time.
Engineers and county road crews are assessing the damage to the surface of the road, ditches, guardrails, smashed culverts and other items.

When winter arrives, some of the creeks, streams and rivers could have a major impact to some of these local roads due to soil damage from the fire.

The dead trees near road sides, that could easily fall during winter weather, will not help matters either.

Grossi stresses the Yosemite Area Regional Transit System (YARTS) has resumed service for the next couple of weeks.   Grossi says, "Over all the twice a day YARTS service (public bus rides from various Tuolumne County locations to Yosemite National Park) is doing pretty well. As long as we have ridership, we will continue to provide the service through the end of the month. For more information click http://www.yarts.com ."

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FROM APPROXIMATELY 6:45 A.M.:

Current Situation

Total Personnel	2,764
Size	255,560 acres
Percent Contained	80%
Estimated Containment Date	Friday September 20th, 2013 approx. 12:00 AM
Fuels Involved	Brush, Oaks, and Pine, conifer stands
Fire Behavior	Fire behavior consisted of surface fire with slow rates of spread in the north and northeast areas of the fire. In the remaining areas of the fire creeping and smoldering were observed.

Outlook

Planned Actions	Resources will continue to patrol, mop-up, and monitor all areas of the fire in addition to patrolling the developed areas interior of the fire perimeter and those adjacent to the fire area. Implementation of the Suppression Repair Plan will continue.
Growth Potential	High
Terrain Difficulty	Extreme Current Weather Wind Conditions 15 mph NE Temperature 50 degrees Humidity 35%