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One way out risky during fire

Kristin Berquist

(Updated: Thursday, July 09, 2009, 6:20 PM)

Evacuation routes in the mountains are extremely important, especially during fire season. But what happens when a mountain-area community has only one road in and out?

Poor road access and neglected evacuation routes increase the risk of losing property and lives. That is why local agencies and individual volunteers are working to improve roads and evacuation routes for 11 top-priority communities identified to be in high fire-risk areas. The communities include Cascadel Woods, Cedar Valley, Road 620 (Bissett Station Road), Nipinnawasee, John West Road, Sugar Pine, North Fork, Oakhurst, Bass Lake Annex, Bass Lake and Sky Acres.

The Madera County Community Wildfire Protection Plan was approved earlier this year to identify and prioritize communities needing attention to road access, said professional forester Larry Ballew. The protection plan was put into place through the efforts of Supervisor Tom Wheeler and local agencies like Cal Fire, U.S. Forest Service, Office of Emergency Services, Coarsegold Resource Conservation District and the Eastern Madera County Fire Safe Council.

The protection plan was required in order for the county to be eligible for federal grants to fund the improvement projects, Wheeler said. Instead of putting in new roads, he said the focus is on maintaining and improving existing routes.

"We're really not running into an issue of having enough roads out there to manage fire," said Dave Martin, district ranger for the Bass Lake Ranger District. "The bigger issue is having enough money to maintain the road systems that are out there."

When communities are located within the National Forest, building new roads is particularly difficult.

"To build a road on National Forest land is a permanent encumbering of public land," Martin said. "We have to be careful that it's the only option."

The Forest Service is working with Madera County to create an alternate road out of Bass Lake through the National Forest, Martin said. The Bass Lake project will be paid by private landowners, Martin said, however, many fuel reduction treatments that take place in the National Forest are funded by the federal government.

"We all recognize that this is one big ugly problem that everybody's going to have to contribute to," he said. "We're trying to be strategic with it, trying to get the areas and communities most at risk."

With a total of 35 communities at risk, the County's protection plan will first tackle the top 11 at-risk areas as funding is made available, Ballew said. Many projects receive full or partial funding through grants but some projects on private land are completed at the expense of the landowner.

The Forest Service is currently working on two projects outlined in the County's protection plan -- Cedar Valley and the Cascadel Woods subdivision.

The Cedar Valley project started last fall, Martin said, with continued thinning of dense vegetation along the main road into Cedar Valley and on the Sky Ranch Road.

Cascadel Woods has 106 dwellings with only one road in and out. The narrow, winding two-lane road is surrounded by thick brush and trees. A 300-foot-wide fuel break, or strip of land where flammable vegetation has been thinned or removed on both sides of the road, is currently being worked on by the Forest Service, Ballew said.

Individual efforts are important in high-risk communities like Cascadel Woods. Residents must take the necessary measures to clear a defensible space around private structures, which in turn help to make the entire community more fire safe.

A fuel break along County Road 620 is also under way, Ballew said. Artery roads like Road 620 need to be maintained as possible detour routes for Highway 41 and 49, he explained.

Many county roads are narrow and winding, making it difficult for fire equipment to get in and out, Ballew said.

Toni Margrey lives off of Road 628. Last year, a lightening strike started a fire in Margrey's backyard. Only a couple fire engines from Ahwahnee made it up Road 628, Margrey said. The other fire engines had to drive around on Highway 49, doubling the response time.

The effort to treat and maintain road ways started more than 15 years ago, Ballew said, when two women from Ponderosa Acres attended a Coarsegold Resource Conservation District meeting to voice concerns about the safety of their community. Ballew recalled the women were "scared to death" about what would happen in the event of a wildfire and asked for help to make the community more fire safe.

The conservation district responded by meeting with all 58 landowners in Ponderosa Acres. After building a fire emergency road for evacuation and fire-proofing roads and powerlines in the community, the California State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection came out to see what the community had accomplished, Ballew said. This was essentially how the fire safe councils started in California, he said.

If an emergency strikes, local officials like the sheriff and the Eastern Madera County Emergency Preparedness Committee will direct residents to the proper evacuation routes. Established safe area such as schools, ranches, large churches and golf courses provide common areas for residents to congregate in an emergency, Wheeler said.

The community notification system Reverse 911 is set up to call land lines in areas affected by an emergency. The call will provide residents directions to evacuation routes or safe areas, depending on the situation, Wheeler said.

"Planning to get people out is crucial," Martin said.

It is critical that residents become familiar with road access and evacuation routes in the event of a disaster, Wheeler said.

Roger Maybee, fire safe consultant with the Eastern Madera County Fire Safe Council, was hired by the County to work with communities at risk, developing plans to establish and protect evacuation routes. Communities and individuals interested in meeting with Maybee can contact him at (559)760-7407 or the Fire Safe Council at(559) 877-3772.