Grass Valley, Calif. — The California Office of Emergency Services has announced it will award $7.8 million in grant funds to the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County for the Deer Creek Defensible Space and Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project. This phase of the project encompasses 1600 acres of the more than 4,000-acre project footprint.
The funds, supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), will be available initially to nearly 325 parcel owners. The project will provide a critical protection zone to the communities of Grass Valley, Nevada City, Rough and Ready, Penn Valley and North San Juan, all of which are at risk of fire in the Deer Creek drainage. Phase one will involve public outreach, rights of entries, home hardening and defensible space assessments, and parcel prescriptions for hazardous fuels reduction.
“We are thankful to be recipients of another grant from the CalOES and FEMA,” said Jamie Jones, Executive Director of the Fire Safe Council. “This is one of many critical projects that the Fire Safe Council has planned and implemented for the protection of our community. This project spans the Deer Creek Corridor and will strategically protect residents from Lake Wildwood all the way to Cascade Shores. When we submitted our proposal in April 2022 for the initial 1600 acres, we were intent on extending this protection zone to the neighboring 3,000+ acres at the recommendation of our collaborating partners at CAL FIRE, local Fire Districts, Bureau of Land Management and City of Nevada City. This will be the keystone community protection project for residents in our community.”
The Fire Safe Council will organize a town hall event in Fall with regional stakeholders and project partners to answer questions the public might have surrounding project participation, timelines and process.
“Flying embers cause 60 to 90 percent of home loss in wildfires,” explained Jim Mathias, Wildfire Prevention Manager with the Fire Safe Council. “Hardening a home keeps embers outside the house, lowering the chances of the home catching fire. Implemented on a large scale, this could prevent a cascade of structure-to-structure ignition through whole neighborhoods. Defensible space and hazard fuel reduction also significantly reduces the chance of large, destructive wildfires. The project area has seen significant fire impacts causing multiple homes to be destroyed and evacuations from the 49er Fire of 1988, the Trauner Fire of 1994, the Lobo fire of 2017, and the Jones Fire of 2020.”
“We are excited to get this project implemented in our community.” Jones said. “As we better understand the timelines for the grant, we will communicate those to the public on our website, areyoufiresafe.com. Our first actions are to work with our Firewise Community partners within the project footprint to reach each resident and develop a personalized plan to achieve home hardening, defensible space and hazard fuels reduction treatments.”
About the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County: The Fire Safe Council of Nevada County is a local non-profit organization dedicated to making Nevada County safer from destructive wildfire through fire safety projects, partnerships, and education. Since 1989, the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County has helped over 60,000 residents join Firewise Communities, install address signs, dispose of green waste, receive low-cost chipping, protect the community through large scale fuel reduction projects, and understand how to improve the defensible space around their home or business.