Coastlands Fuel Reduction Project at Big Sur, June 2006
The Big Sur Community consists of about 1000 full time residents along 68 miles of Big Sur coast down Highway 1 between the Carmel Highlands and Saint Louis Obisbo county line.
A small number of these tend ranches and other agricultural properties. But most of the community live in clusters of 8-10 houses in what the Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade calls "neighborhoods".
Most neighborhoods maintain their roads with homeowner associations such as Mutual Water Companies or Neighborhood Road Companies.
The Coastlands neighborhood is one of the larger clusters. It consists of 32 residential properties, and a landmark commercial property, Nepenthe Restaurant, with its several service buildings.
In 2004, the Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade conducted numerous fire assessments in all of the neighborhoods of Big Sur.
Among its more serious findings, the Fire Brigade determined that a section of Lower Coastlands Road, "The Hairpin", was particularly vulnerable to catastrophic consequences of wildfire and presented a high risk. Not only would emergency fire apparatus and equipment have an extremely difficult time getting around this 170 degree turn. The steep canyon below was completely overgrown with fuel rich vegetation such as genesta, willows, coyote bush, and bay laurel saplings.
It was a classic ?fire trap? that emperiled both citizens and firefighters.
The Montgerey Fire Safe Council working with the Coastlands Mutual Water Company put together a simple project: The neighborhood would augment the labor force of a well-known, reliable, licensed Big Sur contractor to clear and clean the small canyon at the hairpin of its accumulated fuels.
First, they cleared the floor of the canyon and hauled the brush hauled to the road surface. Next, they chipped the brush and cut branches, broadcasting the mulch back to canyon floor. They left all the vegetation on the steep embankments intact to prevent erosion of the canyon wall.
The project included provisions that protected ?Special status? species of plant. A county approved biologist identified and tagged exemplars of the special status species, and trained workers to recognize and to avoid them while clearing the rest.
Finally, the contractor then tackled another serious problem associated with the canyon, the large, standing Sudden Oak Death victims - the dead tanbark oak trees.
These carcasses, while standing, would create fire ladders that could easily ignite the canopy of healthy trees so create havoc with human habitats.
The contractor?s crew of 5 men spent 3 days felling all the dead trees, bucking some of the wood, and leaving the smaller pieces on the ground to decay.
Coastlands Mutual Water Company and the Monterey Fire Safe Council split the costs of nearly $7000.
While it took approximately three months to obtain the necessary permits and waivers from the county, once approved, the project took about 50 mandays of effort over 4 weeks.
The Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade, the Coastlands Water Company, and the Coastlands residents are all pleased with this simple, straightforward project that netted tangible results for the community.
