The Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks has a program that encourages homeowners to clear away excess combustible material from their rural homes in order to establish a defensible space in the event of wildfire. They reimburse the homeowners for doing it, and, in a triage situation, firefighters will respond to a defensible home before they'll respond to one that is not. So it's a no-brainer good program.
We signed up for the program last spring. Since then, Don has been slaving away at tree-slaying on about six acres surrounding the house. It's partly how he's lost 25 pounds. He's taken out literally thousands of trees by chain saw, tractor, and axe.
The problem was how to dispose of all this material once it was on the ground. He hauled much of it into huge burn piles, which are now reduced to ashes (except for some large stumps that will smolder for months). He also hired a man with a large chipper that sucks in good-sized trees as if they're strings of spaghetti. The chips (about eight dumptruck loads of fragrant fir and pine) are now in the riding arena, waiting to be spread.
This has been a huge task for Don, but the results are unbelievable. Our view of the mountains is greatly enhanced, and we have this feeling of even more spaciousness around a house that used to be surrounded by dense trees. We also gained lots of firewood for this year and next.
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