A new mapping tool, the Roadside Vegetation Management Tracker, is now available on the Ready Nevada County Dashboard to help residents view which evacuation routes the Nevada County Public Works Department has treated. Residents may monitor the number of miles treated per year, and access a schedule of the roads to be treated in neighborhoods from Truckee to Lake of the Pines, now through 2025.
The County of Nevada is working to reduce wildfire through a combination of fuels thinning, strategic partnerships, defensible space implementation, and community education around land stewardship and emergency preparedness.
The Public Works Department is responsible for maintaining an estimated 25% of the roadway in Nevada County, or approximately 560 miles. In 2020, the Public Works Department secured funding to treat 200 miles with a Fire Prevention grant from CAL FIRE for $868,000. Community Development Agency Director, Trisha Tillotson, who originally wrote and secured the grant in her previous role as Public Works Director, says, “I often get questions from residents who are curious about when work will take place in their neighborhood. We are excited to roll out a tool that makes sharing this information super simple.” Residents may now track the progress of roadway treatment by a color-coded map schedule.
Paul Cummings, Nevada County Office of Emergency Services Program Manager, indicates that “This CAL FIRE grant funding significantly bolsters our roadside vegetation reduction efforts along key evacuation routes and helps to achieve a priority of the Board of Supervisors which is to make evacuation routes safer across the county. Greater clearance along roadways also increases the safety of firefighters and first responders.”
The new tool tracks the progress of the grant and includes vegetation management along county-maintained roadways that are part of the Public Works Department’s Brushing, Shoulder, and General Maintenance Project, which may be found in their Capital Improvement Plan. The County of Nevada has applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for funding to treat an additional 300 miles of County-maintained roadway and is waiting to hear if the project will be awarded.
The tracker focuses on three images to show the progress of work. The top left displays the number of miles treated compared to miles scheduled to be treated. The bottom left shows the total miles cleared this year and the third image is a map that shows both treated roads as well as those scheduled to be treated over the next five years. The tool highlights County-maintained roads only. Treatment of private roadways and those managed by other agencies or jurisdictions are not displayed on the County’s Roadside Vegetation Management Tracker.