- State:
- CA
- Site Type:
- Infrastructure and Utilities, Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels
- New Deal Agencies:
- Work Relief Programs, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Description
Ponderosa Way is a continuous firebreak that, when it was built, extended for 800 miles along the length of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and into the Cascades, ending north of Redding. It was intended to be a permanent defensive line between the lower foothill regions and the higher elevation National Forest lands.
It was funded by the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) program, which was established in April of 1933 and almost immediately became known as the CCC.
The CCC operated in California from 1933 to 1942.
According to the California Department of Fire and Forestry Protection, "All told, the CCC-WPA laborers constructed over 300 lookout towers and houses, some 9,000 miles of telephone lines, 1,161,921 miles of roads and trails and erected numerous fire stations and administrative buildings in California. The CCC had also planted over 30 million trees and had spent nearly one million "man days" in fire prevention and suppression activity. Because the CCC was expected to fight forest fires, they constituted the single largest wildland suppression force ever assembled in American history."
The Ponderosa Way Firebreak was the largest CCC project in California and parts of it are still in use. According to Stacy Lundgren, of the US Forest Service,it was instrumental in the recent Telegraph fire.
Source notes
Submission by Stephanie Williams https://www.fire.ca.gov/about/about_calfire_history2.php "Federal Money at Work." Lacey Peterson. The Union Democrat. January 30, 2009.Contribute to this Site
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Andrew Laverdiere
E.B. George
Katherine Evatt
Karen Helton
Lance
There’s a few Ponderosa Way roads around here. I’ll have to go take a look.
I live on Ponderosa way in Manton nearest to Digger Buttes complex. My family has been in this part of the state for 159 years running cattle, logging, freighting and even fighting hostile natives.
Does anyone know whether the federal government maintained ownership of Ponderosa Way or turned that over to the state (or to private landowners)? There’s a related access and land preservation issue in my area. Thanks.
Part of Ponderosa Way runs through Berry Creek as Simmons Road which runs into Big Ridge Rd, etc. My husband and I lived on Big Ridge Rd from 1985-2000. Long before this area’s population grew, our property was a part of a larger Ranch before the properties were broken up – I believe the older recorded map shows the area as the Johnson ranch? In the 1920s(??) there was a huge fire through the Plumas Forest that destroyed a big old hotel near French Creek area. Could this have been one rationale for the CCC to create the firebreak through that area?
Ponderosa way in amador and calaveras counties thru the mokelumne river canyon was a fun playground for me growing up. It went from hwy 26 to tabeau rd. Still does, but gated on the amador side and the bridge wood has burned up, leaving the bridge skeleton over the moke.
Lake Tabeau, amador side, had a ccc camp, I have found ccc silverware at an old building site. Fascinating, and I wish they would have left it in its entirety and maintained it, the firebreak i mean