Second in a three-part series
Related Links:
Historic SCE Restoration Ongoing at Big Creek
SCE’s Hydro Team Helps Deliver Water Amid Creek Fire
Appreciation for First Responders is Definitely Their Bag

The small town of Shaver Lake in Fresno County has been spared from the devastating Creek Fire, the largest single fire in California history at more than 379,000 acres.

Courageous firefighting saved the town as well as Southern California Edison’s forestry team that has worked to protect the area’s forests for more than three decades.

“All the dead tree removal work that we conducted around Shaver Lake helped deflect the fire at our north boundary and pushed the flames around our property in a counter-clockwise fashion and that bought the town of Shaver Lake an extra 24 hours to prepare,” said Stephen Byrd, SCE senior manager of Forestry and Camp Edison.

The extra time allowed firefighters to build fire lines and expand “fuel breaks,” which are used to control or stop a fire. Fuel breaks were created over the last two years in partnership with SCE, CAL FIRE and the Highway 168 Fire Safe Council.

“There was a fuel break around the entire town of Shaver Lake and firefighters were literally fighting a wall of flames heading toward the town,” Byrd said.

The electrical restoration work for the Creek Fire has involved more than 1,000 SCE vegetation management contract crews, who adhere to COVID-19 health guidelines. So far, they have inspected or mitigated more than 81,000 trees damaged or destroyed by the fire.

Byrd and his team have been working to protect 20,000 acres of SCE-owned forest land around Shaver Lake from large wildfires through the use of prescribed burns. The biggest challenge in recent years has been the bark beetle infestation that has devastated the Sierra National Forest that sits on federal land.

Byrd says the tree removal work that included a prescribed burn last year played a critical role in preventing large flames from burning the Shaver Lake Recreational Area.

“When the fire hit the spot where we removed all that timber, it stopped. If we hadn’t stopped it there, that fire would have taken a straight-line path south straight into town. We forced it to head west and it moved around our property, but stayed on federal land,” he said.

The Shaver Lake area remains closed to visitors and could take several months before it is fully restored. SCE and Mowbray’s Tree Service are sponsoring “Rebuild Our Sierra,” a local fundraiser started by the Shaver Lake Visitors Bureau to help local communities recover.

“People are calling the Creek Fire the most aggressive fire they have ever seen,” said Byrd. “Fortunately, we were able to stop it on our land because of the wildfire mitigation work and all the support from countless firefighters.”

SCE encourages community members in Shaver Lake and Big Creek to contact the utility at 800-655-4555 if they see a fire-damaged tree that needs to be mitigated.