Mendocino County Fire Safe Council working to clear roads
Executive director Scott Cratty, a man for all seasons, took the helm of the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council — whose mission it is to inform, empower and mobilize county residents to survive and thrive in a wildfire-prone environment — at the beginning of the year and has been piloting the non-profit association through some very rough and dangerous environmental seas as of late.
Over the years, since its inception in 2004, the Council has been through its own difficult times and a fewyears ago, when it looked like it was on its last legs, the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts (CARCD) stepped in and brought it back to life.
“It’s been an incredible scramble to catch up,” says Cratty. However, theCARCD landed some grants when I took over andwe’re doing an incredible amount of work right now.”
In addition to a full-time executive, the council ismanaged by a board of directors and employs part-timeworkers Bobbie Delgado as administrative assistant, John Hansen as bookkeeper, and AaronMartin, NormBrown and Mary Buckley as grant project managers.
The Council is presently project managing the largest of its grants—$1.4 million received from CalFire for the Ukiah Valley Fuels Reduction Plan, involving many miles of road work, first developing EnvironmentalQuality Reviews and then hiring crews and sending them out to locations to clear for egress and ingress, to make the roadways safe for fire evacuees to get out and for first responders to get in.
Crews have cleared Rob-inson Creek Road; roads on the east side including Redemeyer Road, Vichy Springs Road, Vichy Hills Drive, Watson Road and Knob Hill Road; roads on thewest side including Fir CrestDrive and parts of Oak Knoll Road; and are currently finishing up on Butler Ranch Road, completing a large clearing all theway to McNab Ranch.
“We’re nearly done with thatwork, ahead of schedule and under budget,” he says.
Work on the environmental review process for the next phase of the project is almost complete, developing off-road fire breaks with 2040 paths, limbing up trees, to create a natural place where the fire will die down and not beable to spread further.
“CalFire did greatwork in the western hills but it ends on the north side at about Lovers Lane; we’ll pick up with those fire breaks and extend them further north towards the college; at the south end of town, fire breaks will extend north from Nelson Ranch,” he says.
The Council is administering a grant from the U.S. Forest Service funneled through the California Fire Safe Council clearing Brooktrails’ roads and Williams Ranch Road in Willits and areas in Anderson Valley, finishing up with fire breaks.
Community organizing, fostering neighborhoods to create their own fire safe councils, is a key focus for the Council.
“There’re two ways to get a lot of work done—one is to land a big grant, bring in big equipment and hire people and the other is to have a lot of neighbors just do a little bit.”
There are many neighborhood fire safe councils with opportunities formore. The Council provides insurance for workdays and recently purchased a new automated phone tree system, giving groups a better price, with a higher level of efficiency, allowing key members to send out alerts with an added check-in layer for handicapped individuals, paging them until a confirmation is received.
Funded by a grant from PG& E, the Council purchased a chipper for the Community Chipper Grant, organizing chipper days to help groups and individuals clean up and create defensible space around their homes. Material will be hauled away.
“We are excited about our newest grant, Defensible Space for Income Eligible. One of the key things in getting ready for fire is to have defensible space around your home, super critical in having it survive,” he says.
The grant, funded by PG&E, is for people who are income- eligible, cannot afford to hire crews and cannot do the work themselves. The money will pay crews to come to your home and do the work.
Most homes that burn down are caused by embers froma nearby fire and home hardening (clear your roof, protect it with fireproof material; keep your gutters clean; make sure your house vents have very small, fire proof openings) and creating defensible can helpmake your home more impervious.
Defensible space around your home starts at 5 feet out and 6 inches up making that area as inflammable as possible; clear vegetation under your windows.
Alternatively, make sure your vegetation is inflammable; keep it healthy and trim out dead material with no leaf pile underneath. Green healthy plants are relatively fire-resistant; keep them thriving and well-watered. Make sure they are spaced out, rake and clean for 20 feet around your home; keep it lean and green.
Avoid fuel ladders — smaller trees growing under larger trees — and thin, prune and space for the next 100 feet out.
The Council will be organizing community online meetings to share information on home hardening.
With additional grant funding, the Council is in the middle of producing a video series with experts from the UC system; creating a radio show highlighting the stories of firefighters, mostly volunteer, who keep our communities safe; and working towards a proposal for the next roundof CalFire funding for critical countywide projects.
The Mendocino County Fire Safe Council is supported by Mendocino County, the Community Foundation
of Mendocino County and individual memberships. Informationonallaspectsoffiresafetycan be foundathttps://firesafemendocino.org/ and on the CalFire website. Applications forDefensible Space for Income Eligible can be found at https://firesafemendocino.