FIRE SAFE

             San Mateo County

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Submitted By:  David Sanguinetti, Area Superintendent

The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District is one of the largest land protection agencies in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  The District manages 47,000 acres of wildland property that is divided up into 26 separate preserves.  The District’s mission is to preserve, protect, and restore land in its current undeveloped state for the protection of wildlife habitat and view shed, as well as offer opportunities for ecologically sensitive public education and enjoyment.   The only development that occurs on District land is for modest public staging access, parking areas with toilets, and trails.  The District asks its visitors to minimize the impact on the land by packing out what they bring in and by “walking lightly” on the resource.  Currently about 80% of the District’s property is open to the public for low-impact recreational type activities such as hiking, jogging, bicycling, and horseback riding.  The remaining 20% is in the planning process for future access.

For management and protection of the property, the District focuses on trail, fire road, and firebreak maintenance.  In the fall the District protects the roads and trails from winter precipitation by installing and repairing drainage structures.  District staff avoids driving heavy vehicles on fire roads when they are wet.  Instead District personnel hike or operate low impact ATV vehicles in order to address visitation and storm damage repairs.  In the spring District Staff focus on fire protection issues, which include:

- Mechanical and manual road and trail vegetation brush back for visitor use, firebreaks, fire suppression, and first aid response.

- Mechanical installation of fire breaks around the perimeter of grasslands that border public roads.

- Work with the California Youth Authority to widen firebreaks in the brush and reduce nonnative plant communities.

- Enforcement of no-smoking and no-campfire regulations on all District land.

- Clearance of a minimum of 100 ft. ladder fuel vegetation around employee and rental residences.

- Integrated Pest Management to reduce plant biomass around parking lots and preserve accesses.

- Prescribed burning for native vegetation management and plant biomass reduction.

 

It is important that neighbors of wildland areas remember it is not possible for any public agency to guarantee complete fire protection of private property.  Fire is a naturally occurring part of the ecosystem of the Santa Cruz Mountains.  As a result of a century or more of fire suppression, we are faced with an abnormal buildup of plant biomass, which has increased the danger of loss of property and complete destruction of forested areas.  In order to improve the odds of property survival in the event of a catastrophic wildland fire, it is the property owner’s responsibility to complement agency efforts by implementing the “Fire Safe” practices defined on this web site and in the San Mateo County Fire Safe pamphlet, “Living With Fire”.