Mendocino RCD addresses fires and fire management at local forum
Mendocino County Resource Conservation District (RCD) participated in a panel of fire and forestry professionals in Mendocino this week to discuss a fire-related film screening and local fire management needs. The meeting was featured in the Fort Bragg Advocate-News. Here’s a quick excerpt:
[Mary] Mayeda, a forester with the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, summed up the fire risk on the Mendocino Coast, and everywhere in rural Northern California: “It’s not if. It’s when,” she said.
…property owners, neighbors, landlords, tenants, must make and carry out plans for protecting their part of the forest themselves.
The best chance at minimizing the destructiveness of that inevitable fire, Mayeda said, is to have forest that is as free of fuel — not only dead and dry trees and brush, but also the thicket-like woods that people sometimes prefer around their homes for privacy — as possible. Mayeda acknowledged that the state law requiring 100 feet of defensible space around buildings is “without teeth”.
The Fire Safe Council, she said, is primarily a source of advice. It can sometimes provide grants and other material assistance to property owners, she added, but grants take time, and the need to adapt to the new fire environment is urgent.
To read the full article please click here. Visit our Forest Health project page for additional information.
