Rancho Solano Parkway Landscaping 4-1-2025
Bill Mayben
• Rancho Solano Parkway serves as the only Fire Evacuation route for 1200 households, over 3000 people.
• Presently, some of the landscape areas appear to be less than fire safe. • Climate change has subjected some of the original plantings from over 30 years ago; to a more stressful environment; including drought, beetle infestation, heat; as well as crowding in some places.
• Beetle or disease ravaged pine trees and dead limbs are in evidence in several areas. There is sap collecting on the trunks of some of these trees, making them a potential hazard to downwind residents in wildfire conditions; and equally important; to maintain a reliable fire -safe evacuation corridor. Other trees are struggling.
■ Whatever the reason, or combination of reasons; specific trees will unlikely recover. Clearing them reduces fire risk. If pine beetle infestation is involved, as in most of the western U.S. forests; replanting with the same species is unlikely to produce effective long-range viability. • Thinning dead, brushy, unhealthy or dying landscape trees can itself provide wildfire safety; and prevent infected trees from infecting other landscape trees as well as pines on residential properties .Cal -Fire has extensive written and graphic recommendations regarding trimming trees generally, for fire safety. A practical exercise is to use florescent engineers tape to concretely identify potential problem areas and scale a plan accordingly.
• California climate is forecast to continue becoming hotter and drier well into the future. Devil Mountain Wholesale Nursery has promulgated about 12 varieties of Oak trees from more stressful southern climates, offering a history of enduring resistance to our coming climate conditions. I forwarded a thorough video by Devil Mountain Nursery to City Staff. 1 Rancho Solano Parkway Landscaping, 4-1-2025, cont.
4 Money is always tight; however public safety is a primary consideration. I managed a crew of fire mitigation professionals over the course of two years; 70 working days; to reduce the exposure our residents had to the potential of a grass wildfire becoming a uncontrollable crown fire on our 550 acres of open space within Rancho Solano. We can fight grass fires, but forest fires are extremely difficult to extinguish; as you have seen in the news. This is not 1985; our climate has changed, and is changing exponentially.
Should wildfire strike; the City of Fairfield is potentially exposed to losing tax revenues from burned or damaged properties. This exposure could far exceed containable costs of pro -active fire mitigation and adaptation.
PA