 Words to the (fire)wise:
How one conservation district is educating the public about fuels reduction.
by Craig Rawlings 
Smallwood Utilization Network
a Division of the Montana Community Development Corporation
Nevada County, California has lots of houses. Most of them sit on dry, hilly terrain covered by oak, conifers, and manzanita, much of which has been accumulating for 100 years.
As you’d expect, a high priority for the Nevada County Resource Conservation District is fuel reduction. And indeed it’s high on the list of Lesa Osterholm, the Coordinator and Manager for the RCD’s Bear River Watershed.
But for Lesa, the environment contains yet another factor: public perception. “Our new residents tend to be transplants from the San Francisco Bay Area,” she explains, “and many of them arrive with the thought that all trees are sacred.” What’s more, the county’s old-timers are often distrustful of government and regulations.
All of which is why the agency’s main fuel reduction strategy is education. In fact, in 1998, the need for education and outreach prompted the RCD to create the Nevada County Fire Safe Council.
Spreading the Word
The council’s board includes homeowners and advisors from agencies such as the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF). However it’s basically perceived as a grass-roots organization, a fact that helps build trust with local landowners.
That perception makes things a little easier for the council’s busy executive director, Joanne Drummond. Various agencies determine the areas most at risk within the county, and then Joanne visits homeowners. But instead of issuing citations, she dispenses knowledge. “I’ll usually spend an hour or so and go through a checklist with the landowner,” she says. That list includes treatment of natural structures and strategies for landscaping. Another item is the Fire Safe Council’s free chipping program (The landowner thins and piles overgrowth, and the council chips it.)
The council also offers Roadside Fuel Reduction, a grant-funded program landowners can use to clear overgrowth from either side of private roads. “That makes it possible for fire equipment to get closer to structures,” Joanne explains, “and for residents to evacuate more easily.” She adds that the need to clear roadside growth was made dramatically clear during the infamous Forty-Niner fire of 1988. (Back then narrow roadways helped create logistical chaos that was partly responsible for the destruction of 165 homes and 260 structures.)
Joanne also gives homeowners a list of resources, including private foresters and landscapers. But perhaps most important, she simply educates them about fire behavior. “For instance,” she says, “a surprising number of folks on hillsides have no idea that flames can run faster uphill,” and that the mandatory 100-foot defensible space might need to be enlarged for a structure in steep terrain.
Teaching the Masses
It’s not all door-to-door selling. The Nevada County Fire Safe Council educates the public through the media, too. The council usually gets a feature story in the local paper every year. And it runs paid ads about its chipping and defensible space programs in the newspaper and on radio.
Appropriately enough, the council also brings its education program to schools. That is, it sponsors a yearly billboard contest in the county’s elementary schools; each class enters a design, and the winning entry gets posted on billboards.
Joanne notes that insurance companies provide landowners with another, slightly harsher kind of education. “The big insurers analyze satellite photos, and if they see growth next to a structure, they’ll put their customer on notice. For many, it’s a wake-up call. That’s when the landowner usually calls our office.”
The Big Picture
Like the Fire Safe Council, the Nevada County RCD considers fuel reduction an important part of its educational mandate. And not surprisingly, Lesa and Joanne work as virtual partners on many projects.
But Lesa adds that the RCD’s perspective is somewhat wider, encompassing the agency’s mandate to help conserve a range of natural resources. That range is evident in the well-attended seminars the RCD has held for the last three years at the Nevada County Fair. There are 40 seminar topics in all, from pasture management to range management. But fuels reduction is front and center, and for Lesa, the Fair is a great way to get the word out. As she says, “It’s one-stop shopping for information from experts.” At the most recent fair, seminar attendees numbered almost 700, an increase of 15% from the previous year. Lesa adds that there’s a ripple effect. “Everyone at the seminars spreads the word to one or two neighbors.”
Lesa also makes on-site visits to landowners. One of her more rewarding visits was to the property of a man whose 160 acres had been in his family for 100 years. “He had a beautiful seven-acre meadow,” Lesa recalls, “but it was being swallowed by surrounding conifers.” Together with an RCD board member who happened to be a Registered Professional Forester, Lesa showed him that he was loving his property to death. The landowner had been wary of any government intrusion, but before long, he had completely changed his view. “He said he realized that he’d actually be restoring the land to its original health, and that he thought his great-grandfather would approve.”
Give Me a Break
Education is even a part of the RCD’s large, countywide initiatives, such as the large fuel break that’s now underway.
The story begins in 2004, when RCD Board member David Vertin spearheaded the formation of a Forestry Committee. The committee included members from the Forest Service, the BLM, the CDF, the NRCS,the Fire Safe Council, and the Nevada County Irrigation District. According to Lesa, they took an objective look at the county’s topography and fuel accumulation and soon realized that the next big fire would run up or down area canyons and threaten both Grass Valley and Nevada City.
The solution was a fuel break. The challenge was how to get public support. To that end, the RCD identified the large landowners in the targeted area. The agency then sent them what Lesa calls “our rah-rah letter,” taking pains to point out just how much their participation would benefit the community. “We got a lot of calls,” Lesa recalls. “They were curious, but mostly excited; they’d say, ‘Yes I want to do it, I just hadn’t known what to do.’”
The RCD followed up with brochures on managing vegetation, plus seven different public meetings around the county. The final result was rapid buy-in from landowners and the community in general.
The fuel break, now halfway completed, will be 16 miles long and 1500 feet wide. But it won’t look like a power line clear cut; trees and other natural structures will be left as cover for wildlife. Maintaining that balance, Lesa stresses, is another important part of the RCD’s mission. “We weigh fuels reduction with forest health and wildlife management.” She recalls that when California first mandated 100 feet of defensible space around structures, some homeowners simply cut everything, which caused erosion. “Instead,” Lesa says, “we show them how to modify vegetation to keep the soil intact, while providing habitat for wildlife. They can leave patches of manzanita, as long as they separate ladder fuels from the trees.”
The Lowdown for Districts
That’s all good advice for landowners. But what tips does Lesa have for conservation district managers? “Most of all, collaborate. Work with other agencies like fire councils, fire districts, and the Forest Service. Among other things, that will give you a broad view of the money flow: what the relevant grant and cost share programs are.” Lesa also advises getting out in front of any issue that might encounter public resistance. “Educate people about the benefits before any rumor or resentment starts.”
What’s more, don’t rest on your laurels. Lesa keeps a clear-eyed view of the challenges that remain. “We have to work on the folks who are still standoffish,” she admits. And the RCD has to keep reminding participants about maintenance. “People forget that trees and bushes grow back, and need to be re-trimmed.”
Another challenge: In a way, the chipping program has been a victim of its own success. It produces so many trimmings that the Fire Safe Council now has two full-time, year-round crews on the job, and needs funding for a third crew.
A final question is what to do with all that biomass. The Council has lined up a BLM grant to start a Wood Use Center, but it’s running into a “not in my backyard” reaction. So how will Lesa and Joanne solve that problem?
Education.
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