By Duncan A. Kennedy

QUINCY – Despite soaring temperatures and two years of hiatus dulling hype at county fairs nationwide, the Plumas-Sierra County Fair returned to Quincy in the final days of July to much fanfare and stunning numerical success. The last such county fair was held August 7th through 11th, 2019.

Even after (or perhaps because of) the two years of delay, the fair saw attendance not only meet pre-pandemic levels, but in fact exceed them. According to Fair Manager John Steffanic, attendance was up from 2019 on every day except Saturday, averaging around 4,000 people per day. Crunching and aggregating the attendance numbers across all four days and accounting for people who attended on multiple days, paid fair attendance was around 9,000 people. Including unpaid attendees who came on Free Admission Day (Thursday), total fair attendance was in the vicinity of 12,000 – 13,000 people – not bad, given that only twenty-two thousand live in Plumas and Sierra Counties.

Steffanic and other fair staff members also noted another area where the Plumas-Sierra County Fair exceeded relative to others – entries. Many county and even state fairs suffered badly in this category due to the pandemic, with most fairs seeing barely half their pre-pandemic entry numbers. Here, however, entries were down by only 35 percent – a full 15 percent better than the average. Entries were most noticeably diminished in the livestock and floriculture categories, while visual arts stayed roughly static and home arts increased slightly. Already, the fair’s staff and board members are mulling over ways to increase competition in next year’s fair, sure to be a topic at the next board meeting.

Caltrans Press Release of August 3, 2022

New Vegetation Removal Contract to Reduce Fuel Loads in Nevada and Butte Counties

NEVADA COUNTY – Caltrans is alerting State Route 49 (SR-49) motorists of the start of a new wildfire fuel reduction contract to address overgrown vegetation at various locations in Nevada County between Lime Kiln Road and McKnight Way.

Beginning Wednesday, August 3, construction crews will start staging equipment along SR-49 near Lime Kiln Road to start vegetation removal at various locations along the north and south sides of the highway. Fuel reduction activities are expected to occur along the 6-mile stretch of highway weekdays between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. Most work will occur in shoulder areas with minimal disruptions to traffic. Short traffic holds may be required intermittently during large tree removal operations.

The $2.8 million wildfire fuel reduction contract will assist vegetation removal efforts along SR-49 in Nevada County and State Route 32 in Butte County. P31 Enterprises of Oroville is the prime contractor for the project, which is expected to be completed in summer 2023.

By Stephen Kulieke

Quick action by firefighters helped keep two recent small fires—the Austin Fire and Boca Fire— from spreading further in the Tahoe National Forest (TNF) near Jackson Meadows and Boca Reservoir.

Sparked by lightning on July 30, the Austin Fire burned in “heavy dead and down slash with some single tree torching” one mile southwest of Jackson Meadows in USFS’ Sierraville Ranger District, just south of the Sierra County line in Nevada County.

According to a TNF Facebook posting, the Austin Fire was held to three-quarters of an acre by USFS firefighters on the ground, including those with TNF Sierraville Engine 361 and TNF Truckee Engine 371, supported by helicopter-bucket aerial resources. In the posting, TNF thanked the caller on Grouse Ridge who called 911 to report the fire and thanked the public for maintaining their distance from fire suppression equipment—also expressing gratitude that no personal drones were flown that would have halted aerial firefighting operations.

At 5:45 a.m. on August 1, Shelley Purser at the TNF Babbitt Peak Lookout spotted a smoke column in the Russell Valley area northwest of Boca Reservoir in the Truckee Ranger District in Nevada County and called it into TNF Dispatch. The early morning detection of the half-acre Boca Fire “allowed the engines crews and hotshots to rapidly complete a hose lay and handline” around the half-acre Boca Fire before winds and temperatures increased, noted the TNF Facebook posting.