KELSEYVILLE >> Cal Fire personnel continue working to reduce the impact of potential wildfires by clearing areas of heavy vegetation around the 1,700 homes and businesses in the Rivieras.
The project is known as the Mt. Konocti Interface Fuel Break Project and includes five treatment areas: Riviera Heights, Riviera West, Riviera Estates, Clearlake Riviera and Thurston Lake. Forty acres in the Thurston Lake Treatment Area were completed earlier this year and crews are now working on the 136 acres contained in the Clearlake Riviera Treatment Area.
A total of 300 acres will be cleared at the completion of this project.
The Kelseyville Fire Protection District, in partnership with the Lake County Fire Safe Council, received a grant from Cal Fire through the State Responsibility Area Fire Prevention Fund to create fuel breaks around neighborhoods in the Rivieras. The goal of the Mt. Konocti Interface Project is to remove flammable vegetation around the perimeter of densely populated areas in order to protect residents and their homes from potential wildfire.
In addition to stopping or slowing an advancing fire, the fuel breaks will be locations where crews could more effectively and safely combat a fire and will improve the effectiveness of air tanker drops.
“A community perimeter fuel break provides a defensible space for firefighting aircraft to paint with fire retardant,” said Mike Wilson, the Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit division chief for vegetation management. “Under average wind conditions these fuel breaks can stop the spread of a fire threatening or starting within a community.”
The treatment areas consist of fuel breaks up to 300 feet wide for close to nine miles. They are being created where permission to enter properties and reduce fuel loading has been granted. Brush and small trees are being removed by hand crews and masticators, depending on slope and access constraints. Cal Fire inmate and fire engine hand crews are cutting material using chain saws, then piling and burning the material for disposal.
Masticators are brush mowing machines that grind vegetation in place, resulting in a layer of chipped material that will be left in place to decompose. Vegetation is being removed in a mosaic pattern, leaving trees and larger brush specimens interspersed throughout the fuel break for erosion control and wildlife habitat. Care is being taken to remove the more flammable brush species such as chamise first, while retaining larger manzanita plants and trees such as oaks, pines, and bays as residual species.
“Community wildfire safety is a group effort in the Riviera. Each home owner/resident must do their defensible space work,” said Wilson. “The HOA will enforce their vacant lot clearance rules, and Cal Fire is providing a perimeter fuel break that together will make a difference when the next fire strikes the area.”
Cal Fire would like to encourage all Lake County residents to take advantage of the cool weather months to prepare their homes for the 2017 fire season. More information regarding defensible space and other fire prevention topics can be found at www.readyforwidlfire.org.
