YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

Yosemite National Park encompasses 303,000 hectares (750,000 acres) in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in central California and spans elevations from 650 to nearly 4,000 meters (2,100 - 13,000 feet). Vegetation ranges from foothill grassland and chaparral, through ponderosa pine, to the mixed conifer zone, to red fir and lodgepole pine and finally to high elevation pine near treeline. Historically, wildland fire occurred naturally throughout the park as an important ecosystem process. Fire suppression since the early 1900s has disrupted the fire regime, allowing dead fuel to accumulate and understory tree density to increase. Today, Yosemite employs Wildland Fire Use (WFU), in which naturally ignited wildfires are allowed to burn in designated areas under prescribed conditions.

Yosemite National Park was selected for this study based on the availability of data, the existence of a fire management plan that includes WFU as an option and size and remoteness of the wilderness area, characteristics which are conducive to the implementation of WFU.