KELSEYVILLE >> The Lake County Fire Safe Council, managed by Resource Conservation District, is a nonregulatory special district serving the jurisdiction of the County of Lake and arrived at the Kelseyville Events Center Wednesday evening to address wildfire concerns during the Big Valley municipal advisory council meeting.
John Vandervort is the conservation manager of the Resource Conservation District and noted the Fire Safe Council (FSC) primarily serves as a as a coordinating entity to all county residents through coordinating messaging as it relates to wildfire risk and by establishing wildfire resilience throughout the county. “We use educational, financial and physical resources to help residents, families and community businesses and institutions within the county to achieve greater resilience to wildfire events,” Vandervort said. “The Fire Safe model is one that exists in a few different scales. The majority of counties in California have a countywide FSC and within those entities are smaller based community FSCs.
The FSC has increased its capacity by two and a half full time staff members and is now up to 13 staff members,” Vandervort said, “And we are making sure the future work we do is actively meeting the needs of the communities throughout the County of Lake,” he stressed. Recently, the FSC adopted a 5-year plan which continues to build out the role for their partners in Lake County that is striving to develop a more comprehensive tracking system, included in the county’s wildfire protection plan, laid out in a countywide document that includes key activities that need to be implemented throughout the county to ensure it is as resilient as possible for potential future wildfire events.
“We are prioritizing coordinating directly with Native American Tribal communities conducting effective outreach to a broader community and underserved populations within the county,” he said. “And we want to make sure we’re maximizing prior investments to support ongoing work at the FSC.” This also includes actively administering an additional $50,000 through the office of District 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska. This funding will be used to treat homes against wildfire in District 5. The current aim is to treat 15 to 25 homes, Also FSC is working with trusted contractors to achieve comprehensive defensible space throughout high-risk neighborhoods. “And we are increasing diversity of our funding resources to make sure our programs remain stable through active flows of available resources,” Vandervort said.
During the FSC’s defensible space program Round 1, they logged 275 requests for services, treated 189 acres around Lake County in 2024, performed 160 home assessments, treated 89 acres via chipping vegetation debris, treated 75 acres through hand trimming, and treated 25 acres with lawn mowers and heavier landscape machinery. Vandervort reminded the Big Valley audience they also were able to manage vegetation administered by accessing pass-through funding from Cal Fire Safe Council. “This program we administered from the tail end of 2023 through the end of 2024,” Vandervort said. “This program was available publicly and promoted throughout the county, digitally and through social media and distributed material published in English and Spanish.”
He went on to say that residents need to stay aware of immediate management of defensible space of their own homes (throughout fire season) and implement a Zone Zero that eliminates any vegetation or combustible materials away from the walls of an individual’s home to five feet away. Vandervort cautioned defensible space efforts can be costly.
A recent donation by Supervisor Pyska will be applied to Round 2 of the Defensible Space program. FSC just submitted another grant application to Cal Fire for a variety of treatment services. Their total request was for $950,000, planned to support a Round 3 of program funding. “Homes we identified to treat are those in the very high hazard areas,” Vandervort said. These include structures identified by Cal Fire that focus work on vacant and abandoned buildings (high hazardous severity zones). This will include lots in Lucerne, down through Clearlake Oaks and up into the avenue areas of the city of Clearlake.
“We also manage and operate a mobile tool cache that offers free equipment loans in order to reduce the cost burden to anyone who desires to do defensible space mitigation on their own home,” Vandervort said. In addition, he added that FSC has been administering 460 emergency “To Go Bags” during the fall of 2024. These backpacks comprise, among other tools, flash drives for documentation, fire tarps, compasses, whistles and other relevant fire resilient gear.
Big Valley MAC member Rick White acknowledged it is a critical issue to meet state level standards for defensible space yet noted the challenge for high ticket purchases. “Say you got a tree that interferes with the defensible space of your home, yet has to be removed,” he said. “A lot of people can’t afford it. Is your program designed to help with that? Could you offset the cost, by paying half, maybe? Vandervort assured him the FSC operates some cost share programs that could be of assistance.
Big Valley member Sydney Giberson inquired about other outreach initiatives. “We’ve identified a number of community leaders and social media sources,” he said.
Finally, local businessman Wes Seifert asked if FSC has contacted TERA (Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance)? “Yes, we consider them a close partner, of ours and are grateful for their partnership.” Vandervort said.
