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PG&E Funds Two Lassen County Fire Safe Council Fuel Reduction Projects

PG&E is helping to make Lassen County a little safer from fire – photo provided by Lassen County Fire Safe Council

Pacific Gas and Electric Company has awarded Lassen County Fire Safe Council $100,000 to fund fuel treatments to address extreme fire hazards created by five years of drought and bark beetle infestation.  The LCFSC will use $75,000 for the Day Lassen Bench Wildland Urban Interface Fuel Treatments Project in northeastern Shasta and northwestern Lassen counties.

Funds are being used to reduce hazardous fuel loads through mastication treatments along the Day Road corridor and for emergent brush treatments of last year’s PG&E funded mastication work. In addition, $25,000 will be used for fuel reduction treatments and tree mortality issues in the community of Little Valley along access corridors and in the vicinity of PG&E assets.

The Day Lassen Bench Project is again focusing on three critical community needs that were identified after the 2014 Day Fire threatened the community: 1. Reducing hazardous fuel loads along the Day Road corridor, which will provide safer evacuation routes; 2. Reducing hazardous fuel loads in power line corridors, which protects critical community infrastructure, and; 3. Maintaining and expanding fuel breaks that protect the community where it bumps up against wildlands. Project work is being conducted in conjunction with a California Fire Safe Council grant.

Between the two programs it is expected that over 200 acres will be treated within PG&E’s service area within the Day Lassen Bench community in the Lassen and Shasta counties. LCFSC is partnering with the Day Lassen Bench Fire Safe Council to implement this high priority project. It was tied with Little Valley for the #1 ranking in the 2017 Lassen County CWPP Work Plan.

PG&E’s contribution to LCFSC’s Little Valley WUI Fuel Treatments project is also being used to fund fuel reduction treatments along access corridors and in the vicinity of PG&E infrastructure. This year’s funds are being used in conjunction with a CALFIRE SRA grant, CALFIRE provided hand treatments and Lassen County Title III funds. “PG&E funds are allowing us to complete this 3 year-long community project” stated Tom Esgate, LCFSC Managing Director.

“Once again we are grateful for the tremendous boost PG&E is providing to our efforts to reduce fire risk in local communities”, said Lloyd Keefer, LCFSC Chair. “We are putting these funds to work immediately and all the PG&E funded treatments will be completed by July 31, 2017, well in advance of this year’s fire season.”

“The safety of the communities we serve is the top priority for PG&E and we are once again committed to support local wildfire prevention efforts in Lassen and Shasta counties. This collaboration among PG&E, CAL FIRE and the Lassen County Fire Safe Council will help the communities we serve prevent and prepare for wildfires,” said Carl Schoenhofer, senior manager of PG&E’s North Valley division.

Jeremy Couso
Jeremy Couso
SusanvilleStuff.com Publisher/Editor
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