The District’s fuels reduction crew, led by Jack McGlynn, has been working with private landowners on Oregon Mountain to reduce the risk of wildfire with funding from the Community-Based Wildfire Grant Program of the Sacramento Regional Foundation and the US Forest Service’s Community Protection Program. It all began when a group of landowners headed by John Richards asked the District for assistance in November 2002. The RCD developed a proposal and obtained $150,000 to implement needed fuels reduction in the vicinity of Oregon Mountain in Weaverville. The project includes defensible space around homes, and shaded fuel breaks along the roads and ridge tops.

The Oregon Mountain area was identified as a high priority by the Trinity County Fire Safe Council in its Community Recommendations Report (Nov 2000), due to the heavy build-up of dense stands of trees and brush in an area with a relatively high population density. This project is contiguous to BLM lands and builds on the work that the RCD completed in, and around, Timber Ridge. Fire starts along roads are one of the most common causes of fire in Trinity County according to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and that is why this project focuses on upper Oregon Street and other residential roads in the area.

The success of community fuels reduction projects such as this one and others in communities like Long Canyon, Covington Mill, Timber Ridge, and Post Mountain have encouraged other neighborhoods to get organized and get Fire Safe. Most recently Mark Stewart, the Chief of the Douglas City Volunteer Fire Department, approached the RCD to assist residents of the Poker Bar area between Lewiston and Douglas City to apply for a fuels reduction grant for their neighborhood, and to assist landowners in Vitzum Gulch to develop a fire safe plan. It is clear that projects are most effective when community members mobilize and at least one local landowner spearheads the effort. For more information on how your community can join the growing list of neighborhoods working together to make their properties more fire safe, contact the Resource Conservation District.