News

October 2024

The draft Community Wildfire Protection Plan is available for review. This plan may be in place for 10 years and will guide wildfire prevention/mitigation planning by multiple agencies. It will guide policy that will affect residents of San Juan Canyon as well as residents in the rest of the county. Please read through it and offer your feedback. It matters. Link to the plan and also to submit your comments is here: https://www.rcdsanbenito.org/san-benito-community-wildfire-protection-plan-cwpp

June 2024

An evacuation drill will be held June 18 from 6 pm to 7 pm. See evacuation tab in this website’s menu for more information. This practice will be held with Cal Fire, Sheriff and County Office of Emergency Services. The County Alert System will also be tested so make sure you are signed up (see either evacuation page or Current Alerts/Info page).

Thank you to County Fire for hiring Community Tree to clear 10 feet along San Juan Canyon. It looks MUCH BETTER! AND SAFER!

With California’s Insurance Crisis, we are all beginning to realize how important it is to be a Firewise Community. It takes all of us to retain this designation. One requirement is to turn in defensible space hours. This information must be turned in by September. Please download and use the form on the Firewise page of this website. To become a Firewise Community, we had to commit to a 3 Year Action Plan.

In 2023, we built a Canyon Contact List; created a Website; Practiced our evacuation route; Hosted a Canyon Meeting; Scheduled Road Warrior Work Parties and created 2 home hardening campaigns (1. The Importance of Ember Resistant Venting and 2. The Importance of a Uniform Reflective Metal Address Sign). For more information on those campaigns and resources, page down to News of March 2023.

For 2024, we must continue updating our website and contact list; practice the evacuation route (6/18); Host a Canyon Meeting (TBD: Probably a Wednesday evening in July or August at Pioneer Park); turn in our defensible space hours; organize work parties, as needed; Remind canyon residents to put up a Reflective Address Sign and make sure vents are ember resistant. 2024’s home hardening campaign is “skirting” and “boxed eves”. Some of the best information online on these subjects comes from Fire Safe Marin. All of these campaign subjects are some of the most important steps you can take in home hardening. Please look through this website. It is continually updated and there is a lot of great information, here.

Finally, the 2024 Community Wildfire Protection Plan is being created. It has not been updated since 2010. Please look at the Fire Plan page to complete a 5 minute comment card to submit your concerns. As always, you can stay connected by joining our Groups.IO (group email). For an invite, fill out the contact information on the Contact Page of this website. Thanks!

May 2024

Upcoming Webinars May 21 and 28, 2024 with UC ANR on Wildfire Preparedness Strategies for Farmers and Ranchers. Registration link in flyer above.

October 2023

The County Fire Department has hired a contractor to spray, clear vegetation and limb up trees along San Juan Canyon. The work will begin mid-November and the job will be completed by end of December. This has been contracted for next year, as well (time period unknown).

September 2023

This news section has not been updated for months. Though we burned (Thank you Paul and Kyle!) the collected fuel from along the road, back in April, trees continue to fall and road warriors continue to cut up and haul away dead trees and fallen branches, as they occur. In fact, as I type this, I am thinking about the dry fuel (fallen trees along the road) in several spots that currently need our attention. Please do your part by trimming brush, trees and weeds along your section of road, if possible. Remember to do it early in the day to reduce the risk of starting a fire with your tools. (A recent fire in Hidden Valley was ignited by a gas powered weed wacker!).

An evacuation practice was run, last week, from the San Juan Oaks gate, through the Brigantino property to the San Justo Reservoir exit. The evacuation routes were heavily damaged by storm and just recently were repaired to a driveable condition. Thank you to the Brigantino/DeMaggio’s for letting us travel through their property. Thank you to Paul Benoit for his tractor work and the many loads of fill he provided. Thank you, also, to new San Juan Canyon residents, Ed and Britan for helping us get the route smoothed out and safe.

Finally, I need all of you to send me your hours spent working on home hardening and defensible space. I know that none of us did a great job recording this (myself included) but we did an enormous amount of work on our properties, this year. Under the Firewise tab, you can use the worksheet provided or any accounting of hours and dollars spent will work. Your individual efforts will not be submit. It will be a tally. There is a fairly low requirement of hours needed for us to retain our Firewise Community, but it will be very helpful when applying for fuel reduction grants. Thank you, in advance for this. I need to submit our paperwork in about 6 weeks.

Please page down and read older news posts, specifically March. Two small efforts each homeowner can take that will have big impact: (1) install a blue reflective address sign; (2) replace your house vents with ember resistant 1/8″ screening. More information on those two efforts are in the March post.

April 2023

As most of you already know, all the burn dates Cal Fire scheduled for our burn pile, were cancelled due to weather. The next available window that Cal Fire had was going to be in May. Paul Benoit, who has permits and experience burning large piles, was worried that the grass in the canyon was going to start drying out and offered to burn the piles. After consulting with Cal Fire, the pile at Deer Flat was burned, last Sunday, the 23rd. Thanks to all the canyon volunteers that helped collect (cut, haul and pile) vegetation from along the road and thank you to Paul and Kyle, too!

And, the grass along the road is getting tall and starting to dry out—so we will have to organize another Road Warrior Weed Cutting event, soon-ish!

March 2023

An Update on the Cal Fire Burn Piles: As you all know, there has been a bit of weather, lately. As I write this, we are expecting yet another storm. The original back up date for the burning of piles on Deer Flat and at Paul Benoit’s was April 10. I spoke to Brice Muenzer, today (March 27, 2023) and the very earliest it may happen is 4/17. The bottom line is: it is too wet. Too wet for Paul to get his equipment to push the pile together and too wet for it to burn. Stay tuned, as soon as we get confirmation of a burn window, we will alert San Juan Canyon.

When we applied to be a Firewise Community, we had to write up a three-year action plan for the canyon. It included actions that we were going to take to make the canyon safer, through both vegetation removal and also educational campaigns. Since we are rapidly approaching summer, I want to tell you about two inexpensive actions you can take that will have a big impact on your safety. The first is getting a noncombustible, blue reflective address sign. Providing an easy-to-read, uniform sign will improve response time whether it is fire, police or medical. Every first responder I spoke to said providing better signage would be a tremendous help to them. These uniform blue reflective address signs are required by some counties though not San Benito. Years ago, the Fire Safe Council provided the reflective address stakes that you still see along the canyon. There is still inventory if you would like to get one of these instead. (lizsbfsc@gmail.com for more information). I purchased my blue sign (3500, if you want to see it) through Amazon for about $30. I also found a company in Bellingham that makes them for between $25-30. safetyhomeaddress.com. Locally, montereysigns.com makes them (but have a $100 minimum purchase).

The second inexpensive action you can take that has a huge impact on your safety is to make your vents, ember resistant. The least expensive way to do this is cover your vents with 1/8″ screening. A more expensive yet still inexpensive retrofit is to buy special ember resistant vents. Fire Safe Marin has a great write up on this:

https://firesafemarin.org/harden-your-home/fire-resistant-vents/#gsc.tab=0

The 1/8″ screened vents can be found online or at Home Depot. Rolls of 1/8″ screening can also be easily found online though harder to find in stores.

February 2023

At the Firewise gathering at Gabilan Ranch, Cal Fire Chief, Adam Rowe talked about canyon residents working with Cal Fire to build large burn piles which Cal Fire will burn. That time is now! Canyon residents will meet at the entrance to the San Juan Oaks Evacuation Gate, Fridays and Saturdays in February at 10 am. We will decide what area of the road needs our attention and will work until noon, clearing vegetation and piling it at Deer Flats, and at Paul Benoit’s property. Cal Fire will burn our piles in March, when conditions are favorable. Please come and help. Many hands make light work! It’s a good way to get to know your neighbors and that, in itself, is important, if we have a canyon emergency such as a wildfire. Plus, it’s fun! See you there! If you have questions, contact a known “road warrior”, a Firewise Board member or use the contact page of this website. Thank you!

November 2022

On Sunday, October 30th, the San Juan Canyon Firewise Board hosted a canyon-wide gathering at the Gabilan Ranch. About 50 residents were in attendance. The weather was perfect, we had great speakers and all enjoyed a tasty taco lunch (prepared and donated by board members, Michael Reid and Gerry Medland! THANK YOU!)! It was wonderful to meet newer residents of the canyon and reconnect with long-time neighbors.

Cindy Weigelt of State Farm Insurance shared some great tips on planning for evacuation and what to look for in our homeowner’s policies. Chief Adam Rowe, of Cal Fire BEU, talked about the use of prescribed burns around Fremont Peak to reduce fuel load. He also stated that he will provide crews to pile burn the dead vegetation gathered by canyon work party volunteers. This will probably be in February/March so we need to do our part by gathering it from along the road, before then. He also reminded us that we are responsible for maintaining Cal Fire’s 2018 Fuel Reduction Project. Gabilan Ranch Manager, Jeffrey Mundell gave a very interesting talk on how their cattle operation is managed in an ecological manner to preserve soil ecology and enhance native plant growth, both of which help mitigate wildfire risk. UC Fire Advisor, Barb Satink Wolfson spoke on the importance of home hardening, defensible space and how the actions we take can greatly reduce our wildfire risk. The slides to her talk are at the bottom of this post.

The Firewise Board hopes everyone in attendance came away with the message that as a community, we can become more wildfire resilient. Please take a look around our new website, SanJuanCanyon.com for more information. The site is still a work in progress but already offers informative videos and resources for creating defensible space and home hardening.

Becoming a Firewise Community has increased our chances of getting and retaining homeowner’s insurance, as well as making us safer in the event of a wildfire, however, keeping our Firewise designation requires work by all of us. Our application must be renewed annually, which requires an accounting of the hours and dollars spent throughout the year, creating and maintaining our defensible space, as well as the collective efforts of keeping our roadways fuel free and providing wildfire education opportunities. Please connect with us on the “contact page” and let us know when you are available for work parties; if you have special skills such as grant writing; equipment you can bring and operate on work days, or if you would like someone to come out and provide guidance on hardening your home and property. And, don’t forget to give us an accounting of your hours (a worksheet for keeping track of your hours can be found on the Firewise tab of our website). This is an all hands on deck moment, but it is also an incredible opportunity to foster a community spirit while making our canyon more resilient to wildfire!

Liz Chandler, Gerry Medland, Suzanne Pelkey and Michael Reid, the Firewise Board