Can someone verify This isn’t a Pacific Yew?

[JoshTheGentlema]

I'm feel like I know how to tell the difference between a fir and a pacific yew but I have to cut some fir saplings and am afraid I'm gonna mistake a yew. Can someone confirm these are fir's and if you have any concrete differences that would be great. This is in the Sierra Nevada's in California. 





 



 

[aigheadish]

I'm a know-nothing amateur but I thought firs typically look like trees and yew usually look more shrub-y. 

After doing a search on both, the yew pictures I'm seeing look significantly larger than I realized, but still like a bush or shrub, just really big. Fir looks like it tends to look like a tree.

[BradMarks]

Not a Pacific Yew at all. Yew has short pointy needles, grows irregular, with generally smooth reddish bark, although I have seen variations on the bark.  A fir fir shir!  Perhaps Grand or Shasta Red

[Ljohnsaw]

Looking in my Pacific Coast Tree Finder, I follow this trail through the guide:

Branches/twigs have smooth, round scars where old needles have falling off, then it is a FIR
If the base of the needles is a skinny stalk AND round tips, then it is a White Fir

If no round scars, needles are flat (cannot twirl between thumb and forefinger)
And if the needles are pointed tips and the top of the needle has a ridge, then it is Pacific Yew.
If the needle has everything above but a groove instead of a ridge, then it is a redwood.

Hope that helps.

[JoshTheGentlema]

Thanks so much for the help everyone. This helped out so much. I have to clear Fir and Cedar seedlings in a grove of giant sequoias and pacific yews. Wanted to make sure I don't make a mistake on the little ones. I was able to verify all this today on a side by side comparison and don't think I would mistake them now. 

[SwampDonkey]

Yew of any size has this color in the bark ██████ and darker toward purple. You have a fir there. Used to find some 4" sized ones in logging slash on the BC coast. I have some Canada yew on my land, but it just grows knee high and spreads around like running club moss. Bark never gets any color to it.

[WDH]

If yew are from the Deep South (y'all), yew ususally don't know yew. 

[BradMarks]

Now we're talkin'