The following is a letter from Scott Cratty, executive director of the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council.
These are tough times already—and now comes fire season.
Fortunately, we have something that can help you chipper up. Actually, we have the whole chipper. We can bring it to your home, if you help your neighborhood organize a Fire Safe Council Community Chipper Day.
This effort will help make you, your family and your neighbors survive and thrive in our wildfire-prone environment. It will at least get your mind off the pandemic (for a while)—and get you some healthy exercise too! And it could save you and your neighbors hundreds or even thousands of dollars. That seems like enough to qualify you as a local hero. If you are ready for that level of impact, read on.
A Mendocino County Fire Safe Council (MCFSC) Community Chipper Day is an opportunity to have a professional chipper crew come to your neighborhood for a day.
You cut dead material, limb up branches on trees, cut out small conifers, eliminate fuel ladders, and remove brush generally around your house and driveway, to make your property more resistant to damage from in the event of a wildfire. You and your neighbors pile the brush by the road. Then our crew will come by and chip it, and broadcast the chips in place. You can get full details at https://firesafemendocino.org/publications/2020-community-chipping-program/ Ideally we are hoping your neighborhood can generate enough material for the chipper that you could have filled at least 20 pickup beds. But, we want to help you make this happen! So please let us know if we can help you meet the specifications.
Please note that this amazing program is intended for critical fire safety-work only, that means reducing fuel loads within the 100 feet of homes and other structures, which is the legally mandated defensible space, and also along drives. The goal is to make your home (and your neighbor’s homes) safer, and to ensure that roads to Mendocino County homes are safe to exit and for emergency personnel to get in. This is not an opportunity to help clear brush from larger acreage.
For more information about how to create defensible space on your property, please review the information at the following resources:
Want to get more chipper? Reach out to a few neighbors to see if they would like to participate. If so, contact MCFSC at [email protected] or 707-462-3662.
