FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) — It’s been more than two weeks since lightning struck in the Sierra Mountains and sparked the Garnet Fire in Central California.
Since then, there’s been worry about the firefighting efforts.
“The fire did get into the grove. It did come over the Grove Road. But very low intensity fire,” explained a fire official.
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Action News was granted access to the hub at Avocado Lake where officials hosted a virtual meeting on Tuesday.
The U.S. Forest Service hosted the meeting on Facebook to keep people informed on what’s happening and to answer concerns from people living near the Sierra.
“The Garnet Fire will burn until it snows, is that true? Ok, short answer, uh, no but the longer version is the goal is to get containment in the next 14 days,” said Fire Behavior Analyst, Kevin Montoya.
Nathan Judy with the Forest Service said they’re ramping up efforts to keep people informed on timely and factual information.
“What is your thoughts on people saying this fire is being mismanaged?
We’ve heard that folks are talking about mismanagement. We have experts on our teams. In operations, in logistics, and we know how to fight fire, we’ve been doing this for decades,”
Judy encourages people with questions or concerns to reach out to them via email or social media and say they plan to upload videos to YouTube of operations and what firefighters are doing to battle the blaze.
Meanwhile, a petition calling for the removal of the Sierra National Forest Supervisor is circulating online.
Action News reached out to the communications team but we have not heard back.
