Aiming to be better prepared for fire season, the Zayante Fire District and Scotts Valley Fire District agreed to split the cost of a heavy-duty wood chipper that will be shared between the two agencies.
“I’m very excited about this,” Zayante Fire District Chief Jeff Maxwell said.
The districts chose to buy the chipper after it became difficult to schedule the only other chipper in the county for the same time as the districts had the use of prisoner work crews from the Ben Lomond Conservation Camp, said Scotts Valley Chief Mike McMurry.
That chipper is owned by the Santa Cruz County Fire Chiefs Association and is shared between all of the county’s fire districts.
The prisoner work crews from the camp were available at a low cost to cut back brush, create shaded fuel breaks along roads and improve defensible space around homes, but because the chipper was not available on the days the crews were available, Scotts Valley had to cancel the work.
“We don’t want to cut a bunch of brush, pile it up and not chip it, because that increased fire danger,” McMurry said.
Maxwell said Zayante Fire District will continue to partner with homeowners, neighborhoods and road associations to identify ways to decrease fire danger.
He hopes homeowners and road associations will reach out to the district with potential projects.
The new chipper, a 2007 model that cost $25,830, is exclusively for work in the Zayante and Scotts Valley fire districts, except in special circumstances, Maxwell said.
“It’s local dollars being spent in the local community,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell said the five major fires in the county the past two summers, after many years without major fires, have renewed awareness about the importance of clearing space around homes and creating fuel breaks.
“We’ve done a great job preventing fires for 50 years, and now we’re paying for it,” he said.
Maxwell is pleased with the fire district partnership because of the shared focus on reducing fuel for fires.
“It’s really great to work with another organization that gets it,” he said.
