COBB >> Big bucks or big trucks, the Cobb Mountain Tree Project is looking for either or both in its quest to restore a little of the majesty the community lost to the Valley Fire in September.
“We want to give people some sense of beauty in their lives,” said project organizer Barbara Flynn, owner of Brick Oven Pizza & Pasta, as well as the Village Pub, in Cobb.
Flynn has secured a donation of hundreds of conifer trees from a nursery near Portland, Oregon, but she doesn’t have a way of transporting them to Lake County, where they will be stored in a lot behind Hardester’s Markets and Hardware in Middletown.
“The trees are just beautiful,” Flynn said. “But we need to either rent a truck or get someone to donate trucking services so we can get the trees down here where they can be distributed.”
Flynn said she hopes to bring the first shipment from Loomis, Oregon, in mid-November and continue twice-weekly shipments “until we run out of donated trees.”
Flynn has established a GoFundMe.com account to raise money for the tree project. As of Nov. 1, the fund had raised $430 to go towards meeting the trucking needs.
The trees are mostly 12-foot Colorado blue spruce, some Douglas fir and possibly other conifers and are worth about $500 each, Flynn said.
“These trees are intended for all lots anywhere on Cobb Mountain that have had the houses and trees damaged or destroyed,” Flynn said. “I absolutely encourage people who lost their homes to plant trees on their lots.”
The reason the trees will be stored at Hardester’s is because the ground is too dry right now for a successful planting. However, this rainy season is forecast by climatologists to be one of the wettest in recent years for Northern California, with the most rain forecast for January and February. Based on this, Flynn estimated the conditions will be ready for tree planting in January but this could change depending on rainfall.
“Any tree is going to help against future erosion when its roots take hold,” Flynn said.
She added that her program is separate from other efforts to replace hundreds of thousands of the forest trees lost destroyed or damaged in the fire. These efforts seem to be monumental, with possibly millions of burned trees needing to be removed and replacement seedlings planted.
It is difficult to find a precise figure for the total number of trees lost but a CalFire spokesman estimated that about half a million trees will need to be replaced just in and around the 3,500-acre Boggs Mountain State Demonstration Forest. Nearly 100-square-miles of wildland burned in Lake County this summer, mostly from the Valley, Rocky and Jerusalem fires.
A working group of about a dozen state, local and federal agencies has been formed to address the need for a massive reforestation effort due to the number of trees lost in the wildland fires this summer in the county. These agencies include the University of California Cooperative Extension Program, CalFire and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
“These will be forest seedlings, only several inches tall, that will take years to grow, even just to reach one-foot tall,” Flynn said. “My trees are already 12-feet tall, which is years worth of growth.”
She also said she plans to go to Oregon in about a week to talk to other nursery owners about securing additional tree donations for the Cobb project.
The trees are intended for outdoor planting and not to be used as indoor Christmas trees. “I expect we’ll see several organizations make a lot of donated Christmas trees available to fire victims,” Flynn added.
Any persons or companies wishing to donate trucking services can contact Flynn by email at bflynnrealtor@yahoo.com.
