Door-to-Door Chipper Program: $194,500.00

This project will encourage homeowners who complete their defensible space work by offering NO COST chipping of material that would otherwise remain in piles or be burned contributing to pollution in the area. Contractor will chip existing homeowner created piles that are within easy/safe access for contractors chipper and truck. Homeowners will be given an application with instructions and a hold harmless agreement by the CFFSC. Piles will be all facing the same way where possible and material to be chipped shall be no larger than 6 inches in diameter. Chipping redistributes forest vegetation that is cut by mechanical or hand thinning. The chips may be scattered throughout the project area at a depth no greater than 3 inches.

Dorrington/Camp Connell HOA’s Common Area Fuel Reduction Grant: $250,140.00

The three HOAs; Big Trees Village Property Owners Association, Country Houses Owners Association and Snowshoe Springs Association seek to develop a defensive wall against wildfires moving from the Stanislaus River Canyon, and to better protect the entire community. The HOAs intend to reduce the fuel load on common spaces, thereby creating a shaded fuel break between the common areas, Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) property, residential homes and forestlands. Within the HOAs’ common areas, the project will remove dead and dying trees, and reduce ground and ladder fuel with mastication of understory brush. This will help to mitigate the effects of potential wildland fires.

MFPD Pre-Fire Mapping Project: $104,708.80

The Murphys Fire Protection District (MFPD) Pre-Fire Mapping Project (the Project) will produce wildland fire pre-fire hard-copy and digital maps. The Project will cover the approximately 47 square miles and 30,000 acres of the entire MFPD including the communities of Murphys, Vallecito and Douglas Flat within the Cal Fire Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit (TCU).

The Project will create a multi-faceted tool designed to help reduce initial attack response times, increase situational awareness, enhance the public and responder’s safety and support tactical operations thereby contributing to a reduction of habitable structure and community infrastructure loss and environmental damage. The Project will reduce the associated production of greenhouse gas emissions due to wildland fire by enabling fire personnel faster access, thus suppression of a fire start. The Project will produce a 3’ X 2’ two-sided paper map depicting the locations of approximately 1,400 habitable structures, private access roads, public roads, topography, vegetation types (conifer forests, oak woodland, chaparral), water sources, community infrastructure, ICS functional areas, water courses and special hazards (i.e. high tree-mortality areas).

The map pages will be focused on the needs of Company Officers and their crews and will include text on wildland fire safety, situational awareness, tactical operations information, and MPFD-specific challenges in briefing format. In addition to the paper product, digital versions of the map and briefings (downloadable via QR code) will be made available online for fire resources. Once downloaded, the map is usable in the field in real time, without the need for network connectivity, when used with applications such as Avenza Maps. When completed, the MPFD Project will meet the District’s goal of providing wildland fire Pre-Fire Plan coverage of the entire Murphys Fire Protection District and continue the Calaveras Foothills Fire Safe Council goal of creating a connected network of County Fire District pre-fire plans.

WPFD Pre-Fire Mapping Project: $104,708.80

The West Point Fire District’s (WPFD) Pre-Fire Mapping Project (the Project) will produce wildland fire pre-fire hard-copy and digital maps. The Project will cover the approximately 108 square miles and 68,832 acres of the entire WPFD including the communities of West Point, Wilseyville and Sandy Gulch within the Cal Fire Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit (TCU).

The Project will create a multi-faceted tool designed to help reduce initial attack response times, increase situational awareness, enhance the public and responder’s safety and support tactical operations thereby contributing to a reduction of habitable structure and community infrastructure loss and environmental damage. The Project will reduce the associated production of greenhouse gas emissions due to wildland fire by enabling fire personnel faster access, thus suppression of a fire start. The Project will produce a 3’ X 2’ two-sided paper map depicting the locations of approximately 1,400 habitable structures, private access roads, public roads, topography, vegetation types (conifer forests, oak woodland, chaparral), water sources, community infrastructure, ICS functional areas, water courses and special hazards (i.e. high tree-mortality areas).

The map pages will be focused on the needs of Company Officers and their crews and will include text on wildland fire safety, situational awareness, tactical operations information, and WPFD-specific challenges in briefing format. In addition to the paper product, digital versions of the map and briefings (downloadable via QR code) will be made available online for fire resources. Once downloaded, the map is usable in the field in real time, without the need for network connectivity, when used with applications such as Avenza Maps. When completed, the WPFD Project will meet the District’s goal of providing wildland fire Pre-Fire Plan coverage of the entire West Point Fire Protection District and continue the Calaveras Foothills Fire Safe Council goal of creating a connected network of County Fire District pre-fire plans.

Rancho Calaveras Fuels Reduction Program: $213,180.00

The Valley Springs area offers a large wildland urban intermix population which is in low elevation rolling hills of Calaveras County.  This area typically produces a large number of wildland fires each year which result in a significant structure threat.  Due to the rolling hill topography of the area in addition to the large number of intermix residents, the most viable option for protection from wildland fires is LE100 compliance by residence and reducing the fuels located on the undeveloped parcels which surround them.  To reduce hazardous fuels such chemise, the fuel reduction would be to areas that are undeveloped or extending parcel clearing past the minimum 100' defensible space requirement for structures in the intermix area.  By reducing the hazardous fuels from vacant parcels and accompanying it with CAL FIRE provided LE 100 Defensible Space Inspections, the result would be a reduced fuel area around homes which are located on the western portion of the Calaveras River Drainage.  This would not only provide a better reduced fuel area around homes but would also allow for a reduced fuel area to help slow or stop a wildland fire.  The method to reduce fuels would be mastication of brush along with hand crews with chain saws that would then cut, pile, and burn the brush.

Ridge Road Fuel Break: $328,540.00

This project is approximately 5 miles long and 300' wide. This would treat approximately 180 acres of ridge top on a North South ridge where contingency lines were proposed during the 2015 Butte fire. The fuel break would eliminate ladder fuels in a shaded fuel break format. The fuels are heavy in several drainages along Ridge rd. The fuels consist of brush, grass oak woodland and timber over story. This transition area contributes to the very high fire danger area. This project would directly affect over one hundred homes as well as other communities. Ridge rd. is a main thorough fare for ingress egress for several communities should a major wildfire or other disaster occur.  There are some parcels that have been treated privately and would make this project contiguous. This project would also improve the PRC 4291 in some cases and begin to build momentum with other residential properties in the area.  

Sheep Ranch Fuel Break Maintenance Program: $193,760.00

The Project will maintain a fuel break that was constructed as a contingency fire line for the 2015 Butte Fire, around the town of Sheep Ranch CA, in Calaveras County. This proposal would fund the work required, hand and mechanical removal of new sprouting and masticating of areas where needed, to convert this used fire line into a permanent fuel break. The history of large damaging fires in the area, assets at risk, geographic alignment of the ridge, and landowner support makes this an important project to fund.