Fuel break project probably would have been savior

Work has resumed on the Malum Ridge Road (274) fuel break, which some believe would have contained the August 20 North Fork fire to just a few acres if the project had been completed.  As it was the fire jumped the road and raged over more than 4,000 acres during the week that followed, costing more than $3,000,000 to suppress.  

The fuel break and a program to help property owners in the Willow Creek drainage clear hazardous brush are funded under a special $311,500 grant to the Coarsegold Resource Conservation District from the Watershed Improvement Proposition 204 program of the State of California.  Clearing and burning of the brush removed under the program must be completed this winter. 

Forester Paul Rich, project coordinator for the CRCD, explains that the program truly is a case of neighbors helping neighbors.  In several instances, clearing brush from acreages around homes helped to herd the fire around not only the participants’ homes but also their neighbors, especially along Mono Wind Way where the fire burned the hottest. 

The forester noted that cleared properties on the northern edge of the blaze as it moved along the east side of Malum Ridge Road gave firefighters room in which to check the fire moving toward the Bass Lake area.  The fire was held at the Ken Theis and Gillett Doggett places, both participants in the CRCD program.  Mr. Rich pointed out that at the Theis place a vegetation screen had been left at the edge of the property.  The fire burned the screen and then was stopped at the clearing.  Tammy Armstrong’s place on Douglas Station Road also provided a cleared area from which firefighters were able to establish a line on the north. 

Deep in the center of the fire area along Mono Wind Way, Corky Collins and Barbara Thorman had cleared their property.  The flames came within 40 or 50 feet of the Collins place and burned Thorman’s carport, but the homes were not harmed.  In both instances the cleared lands gave firemen room in which to fight.  The flames swept through an adjoining undeveloped parcel where the property owners had signed up for the program, but had not yet cleared the land. 

All commended the work of the fire fighters and also appreciated the program that helped to defend their properties. 

An important aspect of the program is maintenance of the cleared acreage once brush is cleared and burned.  Although Mr. Rich believes that the most efficient and economical ways of doing this is through chemical treatment, he acknowledges that for some this may be controversial.  He agrees that more labor-intensive weed eating does the job as well.  The CRCD insists on one chemical treatment after clearing the land, Mr. Rich notes, “and then we beg the property owners to maintain their property.”  Where weed eating is the choice of maintenance, an agreement to do this annually for the next five years is sought. 

The grant under which the program is funded is limited to the Willow Creek drainage, Cascadel Woods and Bass Lake Annex.  Property owners in those areas still may participate by contacting Mr. Rich are 877-4288.  Work financed by the grant must be completed by October 2002, which the forester points out means that clearing and burning must be done this winter, before the start of next year’s fire season.  Work being done by the Mt. Bullion youth authority crews along the three miles stretch of Malum Ridge Road is about half completed.  Work under existing or new contracts with private property owners must be completed this winter as well.  

The CRCD funds up to 75 percent of $250 per acre for the initial piling and burning and 75 percent of $160 per acre of the initial maintenance costs.  He notes that the program involves clearing, piling and burning of entire parcels, not just defensible spaces around homes.   Although work has been completed on more than 300 acres to date, the average parcel cleared has been around four acres, some only an acre or less.

FuelBreak Project