Saturday, November 9, 2024

How do you think Mendocino County should prepare for the next wildfire?

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The following is a press release issued by the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council:


[Stock photo by Matt LaFever]

As another fire season stretches into what used to be fall, Mendocino County residents have a chance to lay out their priorities for protecting their communities from wildfire.

The county is updating its Community Wildfire Protection Plan, which is a chance to bring in federal money to pay for fire resilience and recovery projects. The plan was last updated in 2015, well before ‘defensible space’ and ‘fuel reduction’ had become bywords in the age of weeks-long blazes. 

And that has real ramifications, according to Emily Tecchio, the county coordinator for the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council. “Our last CWPP is from 2015, which is before we had our major fires,” she noted.  “It’s also before a lot of the science started getting solidified around home hardening, especially that Zone Zero first five feet around your home, so none of that is in there.” Also absent is any mention of the harmful effects of air pollution due to massive wildfires. In August, the US Environmental Protection Agency reported “elevated concentrations of fine particle air pollution” in New England, due to smoke from fires in Canada.

But now, there is a new recognition of the importance of fire resilience. That recognition includes money from the climate change programs contained in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Specifically, a five-year community wildfire defense grant is tied to projects listed in the CWPP. And Tecchio thinks finding out what your neighbors’ safety priorities are can be a great way to build community, too. “The CWPP is really a vehicle for nonprofits and agencies to apply for funding for phe projects that are listed in there,” she reflected. “It’s also an opportunity to bring awareness about the different projects and what your neighbors want. Maybe you guys have the same goals, and you can partner. The document is about trying to secure funding, but funding for what the community wants.”

The Mendocino County Fire Safe Council is encouraging local people to articulate their needs as clearly as possible, to improve their chances of getting funded for the projects that are most likely to protect them from wildfire. This month, there are two opportunities to learn about the plan in person. People can also share written input through the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council website, at firesafemendocino.org/mccwpp/. There, visitors can peruse the current plan and find a link to a survey, where they can describe a project proposal to any degree of specificity or generality, from type of project and location to methodology and maintenance requirements.

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On October 21, there will be a community meeting with county officials and representatives from SWCA, the contractor preparing the new plan. That’s a Monday night, from 6-8pm, at the Regional Behavioral Health Training Center at 8207 East Road in Redwood Valley.

On a more festive note, community members can also offer input on the plan at this year’s Pumpkinfest in Ukiah. The Ukiah Valley Fire Authority is hosting a Fire and Safety Expo on Saturday, October 19. As kids pretend to be rescued from a staged burning, parents can learn more about how to contribute to the upcoming Community Wildfire Protection Plan. “The purpose  of a CWPP is to collect input from the community,” Tecchio urged. “Everybody is in danger of burning, whether they realize it or not.”

Mendocino County Fire Safe Council’s mission is to help communities survive and thrive in a wildfire-prone environment. Visit our website, firesafemendocino.org, to find out how we can help you improve fire resiliency in your neighborhood.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. The residents of RV needed a siren, begged for a siren, apparently now have a siren but it’s not functioning? This is absolutely absurd. This is so basic, a most basic response. For those of us who lived through that night, who woke up surrounded by fire with zero warning, who escaped by the good graces of immediate neighbors, and for those neighbors whose lives were burned away, we need a simple siren.

    • We had a siren. For 30 plus years it went off at noon daily. I believe the fire had snuck up so fast it wasn’t thought of or hadn’t been used in a while.

      On those dry eastern hot wind nights we ought to have some folk stay awake all night up on the ridge looking out for fires.

      • Ok Yes we had a siren. It wasn’t used for a myriad of reasons. No key, no evacuation orders, no one knew ? That’s the point. We have one still, but its not disaster ready. So we have no emergency siren.
        Which is why my neighbors all have bull horns now. When I say we have no siren, I mean we have no functioning siren. 7 years later and no functioning siren after half of RV burned down? Every year they ask for public input. A functioning siren!!

    • If you listen to this, you hear firefighters begging to send an evac order. But the authorities kept saying not yet, that they had to check. For 45 minutes while north RV scrambled like ants they still didn’t do a reverse 911. It was neighbors honking horns and pounding on doors, dogs barking.
      LOVE YOUR NEIGHBORS!

  2. Bring in the GOAT farmers, we all know they eat ANYTHING let them loose on the underbrush. Stake them out, portable fencing I’m sure something could be figured out. Something to ponder.

  3. I would love to see a community effort coordinated with Fish & Game for cleaning out creek beds of so much dry kindling like materials. During Redwood Valley’s Oct 2017 Fire, dry lower materials made creek beds act like fuses bringing wind blown (up to 60 mph) fires to houses. Those fire fires spread so fast via fire embers blowing down wind into all those house that burnt down . How can we fix that most major danger?

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MendoFever Staff
MendoFever Staff
Editor's Note: Whenever an article's byline reads "MendoFever Staff", the contents of that article were not composed by any of our reporters. Types of writing that will be attributed to "MendoFever Staff" include press releases, letters to the editor, op-eds, obituaries— essentially writing that is not produced by a reporter.

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