By Paul Wellersdick
The Chico Enterprise-Record (California)
PARADISE, Calif. — Clear skies Friday afternoon offered a great view from lower Paradise down toward the destructive path of the Humboldt Fire.
It was a great setting for the Butte County Fire Safe Council to remind residents of its free programs.
Spring is only a month away, with fire season close behind. Now is the time to get ready for fire season by taking advantage of the free wood chipping and fire clearance programs.
J&J Vegetation Control also took advantage of the break in the weather to clear defensible space around an elderly woman’s home.
With a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management, the Fire Safe Council was able to pay J&J to create a 100-foot buffer between the Big Sky Drive home and the thick oak forest below.
“The grant funds received are helping residents be prepared for the upcoming fire season,” Butte County Fire Safe Council Executive Director Calli-Jane Burch stated in a press release.
The money will help residents throughout the county chip an estimated 250 acres of fire hazards into harmless mulch.
The chipper program, started by the council in 2001, operates from November to June and provides an alternative to burning or hauling brush and tree limbs to landfills.
All the council asks in exchange for its free services, is that residents stack brush and limbs in a row five feet from the road, with the big ends of limbs facing the road. Keep the piles free of rocks and roots and the council will pay a contractor to chip them up.
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