Cottonwood Creek Watershed Group helps prepare for fire season

SUMMERTIME FIRE HAZARD: This area poses a fire danger because the vegetation is dense and a provides “ladder fuels” for a summer brush fire to climb up and catch the tree canopy on fire.

Photo by Michael Woodward, Reporter

SAFE SCENERY: Vegetation in this area has been cleared, and smaller limbs have been masticated and left on the ground to decompose into the soil.

February showers bring April grasses, scrub oak and manzanita. Even though the young saplings don’t crisp in summertime like shorter-rooted grasses, they do provide “ladder fuel” for potential brush fires to climb to the tree canopy.

“Manzanita grows in thick clusters,” said Vieva Swearingen, coordinator of the Cottonwood Creek Watershed Group (CCWG). As of March 23, the CCWG has cleared 135 acres in the region with the support of a $100,000 grant. The funding for the “Biomass Project,” which ends May 1, was provided by a National Fire Plan grant from the Bureau of Land Management through the California Fire Safe Council.

The project alleviated the fire risk in the Bowman area, southwest of Cottonwood.

“Vegetation in the Bowman area exhibits a moderate to extremely high fuel load including dense live oaks with an understory of manzanita,” according to CCWG information. “The dense oaks are growing close to the roads, increasing the risk of fire ignition.”

Landowners that signed up to allow clearing on their land have saved themselves the effort and cost of making their own land fire safe.

“People have been thrilled,” said Lauren Winsor, Fire Safe Coordinator of the CCWG. “Neighbors who see the results want to join up.”

The vegetation was cleared away in many different areas, but only if landowners signed up for the service. Small limbs were fed into a chipper and spread onto the ground to decompose. Larger limbs were sold as firewood.

Some did not want any work done on their land for privacy reasons or preference for wild growth on their property.

Winsor stressed the importance of maintaining a 100-foot defensible space around houses to keep them from catching fire. The defensible space involves removing ladder fuels from under trees, removing dead leaves and brush, and removing limbs up to six feet off the ground.

The California Department of Fire (now Cal Fire) could fine a homeowner, Winsor said, if they are called to a fire where no defensible space was created.

“If there’s no defensible space,” Winsor said, “the fire department could refuse to fight the fire if there is a risk of firefighters’ lives. It’s their job to fight fire, not to die.”

Other CCWG projects include a donation of 27 trees planted by students in the West Valley FFA through a $1,485 grant from the California Releaf Program. The sycamores and oaks were planted in late March at the North Cottonwood Elementary School.

The group is also involved in looking for the endangered red-legged frog in Shasta County. Although none have been found, biologist Dr. Gary Fellers of the U.S. Geologic Survey is looking for potential habitat for the frog that was made famous by Mark Twain’s story, “The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”

Following are some other hazards noted by the Fire Safe Council. For more Fire Safe tips, contact the CCWG at 347-6637:

• The access road is not named or marked. If the road leading to your home is not identified, emergency services personnel will not be able to easily find it when you call for help. Post a sign with the name of the road in reflective letters at a place where people can easily see it on a dark or rainy night.

• The driveway is over a quarter-mile in length and there is little or no area for a fire engine to turn around. The first fire engine will block the driveway so you can’t leave; it is too far to lay hose from the road to the house. Keep driveways as short as possible and provide a turn around/parking area near the house to accommodate a fire truck.

• The native vegetation grows up to the side of your home. Direct flame contact and radiant heat from burning brush/trees will set your house on fire. Maintain at least a 30-foot clearance (more on steep slopes) of flammable vegetation around the house. Use fire resistant plants for landscaping.