Fire Safety
With all the wildfires that Take place in California every year fire safety is something everyone should consider in purchasing a property. As you can see from the photos of this property significant fire safety work has been done. When the town of Truckee offered to do additional fire safety work on my property and thin out the density of trees, I jumped at the opportunity. The town’s licensed professional Forster is supervising the work that’s being done. I walked the property with the Forster as he marked trees to be cut. This work will be completed sometime this spring. In the past, fire safety work was done under the guidance of a licensed Forster, the Cal Fire Forster for the area and the fire safety person from Truckee Fire Department. The large open field of sage was mowed down so grass would replace it (this has happened). The fire experts that were advising me told me that sage is an extreme fire hazard because it has a high oil content and when it gets burning there is no way to extinguish it. All the dead, fallen branches have been chipped so they become nutrient rich soil over time and aren't available to feed a ground fire. In addition to thinning the trees, the contractor will also masticate any remaining sage that got missed before or grew back. Low branches on tree will also be cut to prevent a possible ground fire spreading to the upper trees. In the event of a wild fire emergency evacuation you have numerous choices to reach I80 that do not involve Hwy 267 or Hwy 89 which would probably become parking lots as they do with normal weekend or vacation traffic.
The residential neighborhoods that surround this property have fire hydrants. Firefighting water is readily available to service fire trucks which have easy access to the property. In recent years the national forest to the west of the property has been extensively cleaned up and thinned out. When you compare this property, which is surrounded by residential neighborhoods with fire hydrants to property's next to forests the fire safety is vastly better.
Many local people consider the residential neighborhoods, Martis camp and Schaefer Mill, to be fire traps, largely because there is normally only one road in and one road out and that road is single lane. Yes, there is a county approved Emergency Preparedness and Evacuation Plan and I've read parts of it. I'm sure Malibu had one as well. The plan assumes that people don't panic when traffic gets backed up and they calmly wait and don't abandon their cars on the road. Waiting more than a hour just to get to the 267 Hwy with smoke all around? Assuming that Hwy 267 is clear during a wild fire emergency is so.... Hwy 267 becomes a parking lot on a regular basis. The idea that in a wire fire evacuation emergency only Martis Camp would be affected and nobody from Northstar or surrounding areas would be relying on 267 as an evacuation route defies imagination. If I were struck in Martis Camp as a wild fire approached, I would grab the some Cliff Bars, water etc. and park out on one of the golf course freeways and let it burn over.
I have additional concerns since I frequent the national Park just to the west of those neighborhoods. This park runs from Truckee all the way to Lake Tahoe with a single unpaved gravel road that gets a lot of traffic. Since these issues aren't addressed in the official plan I'll share them for what they may be worth. Running parallel to the national park is the Truckee River and highway 89 to Olympic Valley. Motorized vehicles, dirt bikes included, are permitted to operate on the forest gravel road. There are even paths where dirt bikes are permitted cut right through the forest. I know from experience that many dirt bikers do not stay on the designated paths. Yes, motor vehicles do cause fires to start in forests. When there are strong winds, they always blow from West to East so all it would take is one cigarette butt tossed out a window on the highway 89 to Olympic Valley. There is no way for fire equipment to quickly get to a fire started in the national forest to the west of Martis camp or Schaefer Mill. Lightning strikes are also a problem in the summer months and often happen in the middle of the night. Fire trucks would have to negotiate miles and miles of poor quality gravel road to get to the portion of the national Park just west of Martis camp and there are no fire hydrants in the forest. Vail Corp., which operates the Norstar ski area, has a big chunk of forest which isn’t part of the national forest under its control. To my knowledge this forest is still totally overgrown and presents a significant fire hazard. Since I used to ski at Norstar for many years, I am aware that the wind blows around Lookout Mountain and directly into Martis camp. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that the people in Martis camp would not be able to see their hands in front of their face if a fire happened in the forest to the west of them. As described above the huge swage fields just to the east of Martis Camp are also a cause of considerable concern. So, there are two basic issues here; emergency evacuation and preventing a wild fire from burning down the community.
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