So you and your neighbors have decided to get together and start a fire safe project around your properties. What do you do with all of the small trees, the branches and the brush?

Maybe the RCD can help. The RCD just obtained a new Bandit Industries chipper (Model 150XP) with a grant from the US Forest Service’s Economic Action National Fire Plan program. This chipper, when combined with a new crew vehicle outfitted to tow the chipper, is at the center of our efforts to encourage landowners to get out there and create some defensible space around their homes. This new equipment increases the capacity of the District to serve fuel reduction projects in neighborhoods throughout Trinity County. The District’s crew of five will be able to implement community-protection projects on one site, with the potential to haul chips to fuels utilization sites, for composting or energy production, and a smaller crew can help landowners dispose of materials that they have already cut and piled on their property.

The District has applied for funds through the California Fire Safe Council to provide this service to communities for free, and we hope to have the program up and running this year. Currently the chipper and a 2-man crew is available to interested landowners who have cut and piled vegetation from around homes and roadways at a fee of $410 per day to cover the District’s costs. Reducing the risk of catastrophic fires in, and around, our communities starts with each landowner. The District, working closely with its partners on the Trinity County Fire Safe Council, realizes that landowners need help and we will continue to find ways to provide that help. It is becoming increasingly important to reduce the level of fuels around homes, but it is also becoming more difficult to dispose of the material. The North Coast Air Resources Management District began a new permitting program for burning woody material, because of deteriorating air quality; especially around Weaverville. It is our hope that the new chipper program will result in:

COME JOIN US ON ARBOR DAY Free Ponderosa Pine Seedlings Given Away March 7 ~ 13 at "the Meadow", 511 Main St. Weaverville For information on how to get your free pine seedlings and tree planting information contact the RCD at (530) 623-6004