“What in the heck is going on with your property!?”
(lop and scatter QC hill)
Lumber stacked everywhere, branches and brush cut and then thrown on the hillside, black charred spots everywhere…what’s going on?! (Answer – “lop and scatter”.)
We acquired our first (overgrown, fire prone) property in summer 2020, and promptly got to work creating defensible space. We’ve always known it’s when, not if a wildfire comes thru (of course, we had hoped to have more time before Dixie came knocking the following summer…)
(Cris + lopers)
It pretty quickly became clear that raking the forest by hand was not an efficient strategy. And the more piles burned in the winter, the more obvious it is that the plants around here rely on mild/moderate fire to help “reset” and clear surface overgrowth. A mild/moderate fire will go thru, but without getting so hot and intense as to harm native plants’ taproots protected under the ground, or kill any large trees.
So after 3 years of clearing, cutting, chipping, and pile burning, this fall 2023, all the pieces are starting to come together to take care of it all at once, in place, with a “broadcast burn/prescribed fire/good fire/beneficial fire”.
(QC broadcast burn photo)
Thru luck and coincidence (typical of Plumas county), we bumped into one of the ~20ish “CARX Burn Bosses” in May, and the CA Prescribed Fire Insurance Fund went into effect just a few weeks later in June, setting the stage for a summer full of cat-herding to actually pull the trigger on something Lynda has been wanting to do for 2.5 years.
Since our defensible space means nothing unless the other homes nearby also have space, we’re incredibly grateful that our neighbors also see the benefits of good fire and have agreed to include their property in our treatment plan – making a total of 11+ acres, around 10 structures and 8 different owners.
We are absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in this pilot program for a lot of reasons – from our self-serving interest of creating space around our home and properties, to the ‘bigger picture’ of providing an example of a group of neighbors with (comparatively) “small”, <1 acre lots joining together to harden our homes against wildfire, and put good fire back on the ground.
Questions/comments/concerns/curiosities? Feel free to reach out on Instagram, or by email (goodfire@cullcastle.com).
Crocker RX Updates (for neighbors – password protected)
Last updated: Aug 8th, 2023
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