Dear HOA Presidents, Board Members and Large Landowners:
North Tahoe Fire Protection District (NTFPD) in partnership with Alpine Springs County Water District (ASCWD) and the Alpine Meadow Fire Safe Council (AMFSC) are planning to submit a grant application, the Alpine Meadows Community Wildfire Protection Plan Implementation, to CAL FIRE’s 2021-22 Fire Prevention Grants Program. NTFPD will be submitting this application no later than May 13, 2021 so time is of the essence.
CAL FIRE’s California Climate Investment Fire Prevention Grants Program
The goal of CAL FIRE’s California Climate Investment Fire Prevention Grants Program is to improve the resiliency of forested and forest adjacent communities and upper watershed forests while achieving climate goals. It provides funding for local projects and activities that address the risk of wildfire, reduce wildfire potential, and increase community resiliency. The activities include hazardous fuel reduction, fire prevention planning, and fire prevention education with an emphasis on improving public health and safety while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The goal is to reduce the possibility of catastrophic wildfires which emit significant greenhouse gases and rather contain carbon dioxide in fewer but healthier trees.
Projects are selected on a competitive basis. Criteria that will be used to evaluate the projects include the overall benefit to reduce the threat of wildfires to the greatest number of habitable structures and leveraging multiple funding sources from each of the partners involved in the projects with priority being given to projects that contain matching funds and other financial resources (e.g. volunteer hours).
The awarded grants will be expended over a four-year period (2022-25).
Alpine Meadows Community Wildfire Protection Plan Implementation
As the title of our project indicates, we will be implementing the Alpine Meadows portion of the 2015 Lake Tahoe Basin Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), which can be found online at http://www.tahoelivingwithfire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/LakeTahoeBasinCommunityWildfireProtectionPlan_ReducedQuality.pdf (beginning on page 273). The short summary is that we will be addressing the areas highlighted in the attached pdf. This land includes greenbelt parcels owned by ASCWD and HOAs as well as other private property. Many of the red areas were cleared more than 10 years ago under another grant (and some more recently thanks to your efforts), and it is time to conduct fuel reduction work on these parcels again.
What does hazardous fuel reduction mean? First let us be clear that it is not clear cutting. Hand crews would be used to reduce vegetation in critical locations near ingress/egress areas and within approximately 100-300 feet of structures. This will increase safety for the public and first responders as well as reduce the fire hazard, improve tree growth, and increase forest resilience. The crews would eliminate the vertical and horizontal continuity of vegetative fuels (small trees, bushes, removing low hanging tree limbs, etc.) for the purpose of reducing the rate of fire spread, duration and intensity, fuel ignitability, or ignition of tree crowns. It will include selective understory tree removal (thinning from below) to improve forest health to withstand wildfire in addition to the removal of dead and dying trees that pose a threat to public health and safety.
Riparian areas along streams and creeks would be minimally touched. If work is permitted, the goal in these areas would be to reduce deadwood and other biomass that could ignite and remove encroaching upland vegetation (conifers & shrubs), leaving functioning riparian vegetation (alders, cottonwoods and aspens.)
We will continue working with the Alpine Meadows community on education regarding fuel reduction, home hardening, and emergency preparedness.
What do we want from the HOAs and large landowners?
1. We would like your endorsement for this grant application and plan to submit a joint letter of support. CAL FIRE is clear that applications with community buy-in will be viewed more favorably. Attached is a draft of the letter.
2. We would like to leverage your own efforts and those of your members/residents to serve as “matching” contributions to the grant. This can be:
a. Money you anticipate budgeting for defensible space and/or tree removal for the next three years; and/or
b. Surveying your members/residents on the money and/or hours they spend on defensible space clean up, tree removal, and/or home hardening efforts. We will provide you with a survey at the end of the summer to send to your members.
We would like your endorsement by May 7 so we can incorporate it into the grant application, which we intend to submit on May 13 If you are willing to sign the letter, please send me a pdf of your signature.
Members of the AMFSC are available to answer your questions and/or address your boards.
Thank you for your consideration of our request.
Rachelle Latimer | Alpine Meadows Fire Safe Council, Bear Creek Association member
