Just two years removed from hundreds of sawmill layoffs that devastated rural pockets of Northern California, Sierra Pacific Industries has returned and is ramping up operations at two sites.

Anderson-based SPI has retooled the Sonora sawmill it closed in 2009. The recent resumption of production at the Tuolumne County facility is employing 100. A second shift expected to be added later this summer will add about 30 more jobs.

In addition, SPI's cedar fencing mill in Chinese Camp, also in Tuolumne County, is expanding its operations and adding 26 new jobs, boosting employment there to 115.

"We continue to invest in the future of our community, our forests and mills," said Ryan Land, Sonora's area manager with SPI. "Our multi-species forests include pine, fir and cedar and are sorted and processed by either our Chinese Camp fencing mill or at our new state-of-the-art facility in Sonora."

When SPI closed its Sonora mill in July 2009, it cited weakness in the lumber market and the fact that the plant was configured to accept only larger-diameter logs. The remodel enables the mill to produce lumber from a wide array of log sizes.

"This unique ability to utilize a variety of wood species and log sizes has allowed SPI to retool and expand here in Tuolumne County," Land said.

SPI closed and downsized mill operations amid the state's home construction crunch of 2009. In mid-2010, SPI announced that it would spend "millions" to retool the Sonora facility, betting on economic recovery and a future rally in housing starts.

Now, SPI says it's also betting on California lumber.

"Retooling (the Sonora mill) will help California meet its own demand for wood products, rather than importing lumber from faraway places with lower environmental standards," said SPI spokesman Mark Luster. "The time has come when more of the lumber needed in this state can be produced in California's mills."

Larry Cope, director of economic development for the Tuolumne County Economic Development Authority, noted that additional mill jobs "increase peripheral jobs in areas such as logging, trucking and supplier firms. By using an industry standard multiplier, these new jobs will have a total economic effect of 1,000 to 1,200 new jobs."

The TCEDA worked with SPI on the company's retooling of the Sonora sawmill and related permits.

Ron Stearn, who has served on the Sonora City Council since 1964, previously noted that a loss of 130 jobs in the community represented a job-loss multiplier of about 2.5, considering layoffs at local restaurants, stores and other shops that provided services to the mill and its workers.

SPI closed its Camino sawmill in 2009, with a loss of more than 150 jobs. It also closed its small-log sawmill in Quincy in 2009. The Quincy small-log mill reopened in May last year.

SPI bills itself as the second-largest lumber producer in the United States. The firm owns and manages nearly 2 million acres of timberland in California and Washington.

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