Lake County Hazardous Fuel Reduction Project - Phase 1

Funding Source:  CAL FIRE Fire Prevention Grant Program; California Climate Investments (CCI)

Project Description Summary

The project will take place in Lake County, northern CA, at a time when 68% of the county’s land area has burned in the last four years. Hazardous fuel reduction is on everyone’s priority list after four years of breathing wildfire smoke, evacuation, destruction of whole communities, and economic downturn. This project will focus on CAL FIRE’s highest priority project areas where WUI fuel load is at an alarming level. Local professional tree care/forest management contractors will create or maintain 800 acres of fuel breaks to slow or stop a wildfire before it can enter 10 communities protecting 14,300 habitable structures. 50 acres of right of way clearance will be performed along roads in order to provide for safer ingress and egress. 20 acres of fuels reduction will provide defensible space around valuable assets, a Fire Safe Council’s chipping program will be continued, and hazardous fuel will be removed from 200 high priority residential properties within high fire risk communities. All these activities will reduce the risk of wildfire starting, spreading and developing into a catastrophic fire that deposits tons of GHG emissions into the atmosphere including extremely potent black carbon which is also a public health hazard. An established college workforce development program for ecological restoration will place a second cohort of students through the program. A prescribed fire TREX event will be hosted in the county so that local practitioners can participate in professional training. Regional prioritization planning will allow prioritization of hazardous fuel reduction projects in the county to be accomplished in Phase 2 of this Project and Phase 2 of the Forest Health Program, Lake County Fire Resilience Project.

Budget: $3M
April 2020-March 2024

Fuel Reduction

• 190 acres of fuel break maintenance along the Mt. Konocti Interface Project,
• 85 acres of fuel reduction in BLM’s Black Forest on the north slope of Mt. Konocti,
• 504 acres of hazard tree removal along roads in the Mendocino National Forest,
• Planning and construction of the Scotts Valley Fuel Break, west of the City of Lakeport,
• Planning and construction of the Davis Fuel Break; east of the City of Clearlake,
• 20 acres of fuel reduction around the Seigler Mountain public safety communications site,
• Lot clearing on 200 high priority lots within residential subdivisions,
• Four years of funding for the South Lake Fire Safe Council chipping program.

Workforce Development
This project will provide funding to support the new Ecological Restoration Workforce Development Program at New Paradigm College in Lucerne.

Planning Future Projects
CLERC is completing a Regional Prioritization Plan for Lake County in an effort to streamline future community-wide landscape scale projects.

Partners
US Forest Service (USFS)
US Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians
Robinson Rancheria
New Paradigm College
South Lake Fire Safe Council
CAL FIRE
Dogwood Springs Forestry

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