Photos courtesy of the McConnell Foundation.
Residents of Whitmore, that bucolic hamlet of 1000 or so residents nestled in the forested Sierra/Cascade foothills 30 miles east of Redding are encouraged to attend an urgent meeting of the Whitmore Fire Safe Council on Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Whitmore Community Center, located at 30555 Whitmore Rd., right across from the Whitmore Store.
The purpose of this meeting is threefold:
1) To introduce and sign up local landowners for the multimillion-dollar Shasta County Wildfire Mitigation Project.
2) To recruit new members for the Whitmore Fire Safe Council.
3) To create awareness of the need for more funding for the Whitmore Community Center.
Full disclosure: This writer is a member of the Whitmore Fire Safe Council and the resident leader for Fern Road East, the twisting five-mile-long forest-lined ridge road that demarcates the rural neighborhood in which I live. I haven’t forgotten the horrifying images from four years ago of Redding’s lethal firenado during the Carr Fire and the terrified families fleeing Paradise during the Camp Fire that inspired me to join the Whitmore Fire Safe Council in the first place.
But I have grown complacent. Like many other volunteers during the COVID pandemic, I stopped attending public meetings back in 2020 and I’ve found it difficult to get back in the habit. I need to get over that.
In the meantime, thanks to the years-long drought, I’ve limited brush clearing on our eight-acre property because there was no way to burn the debris safely without immolating the entire mountainside. Mastication of the debris is prohibitively expensive for our budget, so the fuel load has continued to grow.
For landowners and residents facing similar conditions on their properties, the arrival of the Shasta County Wildfire Mitigation Program in Whitmore’s fuel-laden wildland-urban interface couldn’t be timelier.
The McConnell Foundation administers the Shasta County Wildfire Mitigation Project, which for the Whitmore area alone is funded by $5 million in California Climate Investment grants, including two Fire Prevention Grants from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) and two wildfire mitigation grants from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES).
That $5 million will be used to treat 8500 acres on both sides of Whitmore Road, Ponderosa Way, and Fern Road East. Similar projects are already underway or planned for Shingletown, Oak Run, Big Bend Road, McArthur Road, Gilman Road, Bear Mountain Road, Rainbow Road, and French Gulch.
Whitmore residents and landowners in the project area began receiving mail notices last year, and since then the news has only gotten better. Originally, the project planned to remove hazardous fuels from up to 100 feet on both sides of the roadway. An emergency order signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to relax prevailing wage laws for wildfire mitigation projects expanded that distance to 400 feet.
Imagine an 800-foot-wide ribbon of wildfire resilience winding its way through the nearly 90 parcels lining the five-mile stretch of Fern Road East described above. The basic idea is to remove built-up surface fuels like grass, logs, and woody debris and ladder fuels such as the ubiquitous manzanita, brush, and smaller trees that lead to canopy fires in taller trees and then to all-out conflagrations.
For the many overgrown seven-acre “ranchettes” in the project area where landowners have had difficulty managing the property, the project is a godsend. Because the removal of hazardous fuels has been extended to 400 feet, many residents will have real defensible space around their homes for the first time once the project is completed. Egress and ingress will be improved, meaning residents will have safer escape routes should a wildfire strike and firefighters will have easier access to properties in order to battle the flames.
To create continuity within the project area—think of Whitmore Road, Ponderosa Way, and Fern Road East as massive five-mile-long firebreaks—McConnell needs as many landowners as possible to participate in the project, even if they’ve already reduced fire risk on their own properties.
Fern Road East is bookended by medium-sized cattle ranches that spend a lot of money and time on wildfire resilience. For them, the draw of the McConnell project is the opportunity to have that maintenance performed at no cost for at least one season, and perhaps more seasons if new grants are obtained.
In order to participate in the program, landowners must sign a Right-of-Entry (ROE) form that grants environmental engineers from the firm contracted by the foundation, VESTRA Resources, access to their land in order to perform a preliminary site assessment, which includes archaeological, biological and environmental surveys.
Such assessments would ordinarily be paid for by the landowner but will be free of charge to those who have signed up for the project, as will be any and all hazardous fuel removal.
Nevertheless, some landowners balk at permitting strangers access to their properties for the purpose of wildfire risk assessment. Others are wary because recent wildfire mitigation projects conducted by PG&E in the area have removed what in their opinion is an excessive amount of large trees.
To assuage such concerns, The McConnell Foundation stresses that an individual site-specific work plan will be developed for each landowner who participates in the project. Landowners will have the final say on what fuels are removed and are permitted to withdraw from the project at any time. In case of property damage caused by hazardous fuel removal, the project has obtained $20 million in liability insurance.
Conducting the property assessments constitutes phase one of the project which is scheduled to be completed early next year. Phase 2, the actual removal of hazardous fuels, will begin next year after individual site assessments have been conducted and is scheduled to be completed in 2026.
The Feb. 8 Whitmore Fire Safe Council meeting at the Whitmore Community Center has been deemed urgent because not enough landowners have submitted ROEs to meet the phase 1 deadline of completing the individual site assessments by early next year. If enough landowners don’t participate, funding dedicated to Whitmore could be shifted to other projects in Shasta County, or even projects outside of the county.
The Whitmore Fire Safe Council also urgently needs new resident leaders for Ponderosa Way, Bateman/Tamarack Road, Fern Road, and Blue Mountain Road. Resident leaders are responsible for developing an emergency phone tree for the residents in their area and conducting monthly drills.
Resident leaders also encourage their neighbors to record the time and money spent on reducing fire risk on their own properties, which is matched by Firewise USA, the education arm of the National Fire Protection Association that helps small towns organize to prevent wildfires.
Like many small rural villages across America, Whitmore is still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Many Whitmore Community Center events were canceled during this time period, including the annual music and Christmas fairs, the monthly all-you-can-eat breakfast, and Saturday bingo night. While these events have gradually returned, regular attendance is a fraction of what it once was before the pandemic. As a result of decreased funds, it has become prohibitively expensive to keep the community center open.
Locals looking to bolster the Whitmore Community Center’s budget may do so by attending bingo night on Saturday, Feb. 4 at 5:30 pm. The all-you-can-eat community breakfast ($12 for adults, $6 for children under 6) returns Sunday, Feb. 12 from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Residents interested in donating money or volunteering their time for events such as the upcoming Mountain Fair in May are encouraged to call the Whitmore Community Center at 530-472-6434.
Local landowners who have not completed the Right-of-Entry permit for the Shasta County Wildfire Mitigation Project may obtain an ROE by downloading this link. For more information about the project, contact Wendy Johnston of VESTRA Resources at grantsupport@vestra.com or 530-223-2585.
The Whitmore Fire Safe Council will discuss the Shasta County Wildfire Mitigation Project at an urgent meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Whitmore Community Center, located at 30555 Whitmore Rd.WhitmoreWildfireProject
