Vegetation clearing alongside a portion of Glenwood Road in the neighborhood behind SaveMart shopping center is one of the first projects made possible by last November’s passage of Measure B, the City of Grass Valley’s sales tax measure for fire resiliency.
The roadside section had not been maintained for at least 25 years, according to Susan Rogers, who moved to Grass Valley in 2000 with her family and is co-leader of the Glenwood Road Firewise Community.
“It’s an undeveloped parcel, and that type of property is notorious for not being maintained because nobody lives on it,” said Rogers. “Since we moved here, a few dozen trees have grown to more than 30 feet high, and blackberry, scotch broom and other types of vegetation have gone wild, encroaching on the road where it’s already too narrow for two cars to easily pass each other. We live at the back of this neighborhood and Glenwood is our only way out.”
Glenwood Road starts at Nevada City Highway behind Fowler Center and is the sole point of entry and exit for the neighborhood of 65 homes. “We have a real evacuation problem here when there’s an emergency,” said Riki Colby, the other Firewise Community leader. Colby lives close to the entrance to the neighborhood. “When the Sierra Motor Sports fire happened last year, I had a hard time getting out because the intersection was clogged with law enforcement vehicles, a small bus was trying to get in to pick up residents of Sierra Guest Home, and it was just a scary mess.”
Measure B provides funds for the new City position of Community Risk Reduction Manager, for which the City hired long-time local Duane Strawser. “Duane jumped right on this project after learning about our problem at the February meeting of the Coalition of Firewise Communities,” said Rogers. “He got approval to use Measure B funds to cover the cost of using the City’s masticator to clear back about five feet alongside the road, and his staffer Brian Hooper did a great job with the machine and the mulching. There’s more to be done, but it is so much better now.”
According to Strawser, many parts of Glenwood Road in the targeted section had only 8 feet of drivable asphalt because of years of vegetation overgrowth. Now, it’s 16 feet wide, edge to edge, with additional width of flat, drivable dirt shoulder that’s usable in an emergency.
Rogers and Colby praised the City for being pro-active about wildfire preparedness. “It’s hard to believe that a fire could actually burn down houses within City limits, but there have been at least a dozen close calls that I can remember,” said Rogers. “We’re not the only neighborhood that is both overgrown AND has inadequate evacuation routes. Sales tax is a pain, but we’re glad it’s finally possible to have City staff whose job is 100% working to decrease the chance of wildfire and increase our chances of escaping from one.”