Napa County considers multi-pronged wildfire prevention, battle plan

HOWARD YUNE
NAPA VALLEY REGISTER

$42 million plan discussed at Napa Valley wildfire summit

Local wildfire prevention advocates want $42 million over five years for fuel reduction and similar projects to prevent a repeat of large fires that in recent years destroyed about 1,500 homes, businesses and other structures.

The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday held what amounted to a wildfire summit. Wine industry officials and residents implored the county to take further preventative steps before another fire season begins.

“Napa will burn again,” said Christopher Thompson of Napa Communities Firewise Foundation. “We now have a plan of action and we need funding ... and we need lots of it.”

County Fire Chief Geoff Belyea asked for $6.4 million in the short-term. County supervisors responded by agreeing that the county should find the money to make that contribution.

“This is not an option,” Board of Supervisors Chairperson Alfredo Pedroza said. “We always have to spend money after disasters and we spend it in the millions of dollars. This is about spending it proactively … while it’s a bold ask, I think it’s a very appropriate ask.”

The ask is only for a year, with more money needed in coming years for more fuel reduction and to manage existing fuel breaks. Supervisor Ryan Gregory said the county ultimately may have to look at a sustainable money source, whether it be a sales tax, parcel tax or whatever.

Napa Communities Firewise Foundation is a nonprofit that works with 12 community fire safe councils on such projects as vegetation management.

The foundation and Belyea unveiled a $42 million, five-year fuel reduction plan to better protect both rural areas and cities. The challenge will be securing all of that money from the county and through grants.

—Barry Eberling, Napa Valley Register

Following a summer of historic wildfires that ripped through Northern California, Napa County is working with Cal Fire to receive the services of a firefighting helicopter and nearly four dozen state firefighters for this year's fire season, officials have announced.

A helicopter capable of dropping 1,000 gallons of water at a time will bolster firefighting resources in the county, as well as 46 people who will staff a 24-hour fire crew, county officials said in a news release Saturday. The additions represent about a $3 million investment, according to Napa County.

The moves follow a summer in which the Hennessey and Glass fires wreaked unprecedented damage to Napa County's heavily wooded northern tracts, spreading to nearly half the county's land area and destroying hundreds of homes in the Lake Berryessa and Deer Park areas. Wine grape losses caused by smoke taint from the Hennessey Fire, triggered by an August lightning storm, also were blamed for contributing to a 36% fall-off in grape production from Napa and Sonoma counties.

"This investment by the State is a testament to the longstanding cooperative agreement between Napa County and Cal Fire," the agency's Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit chief Shana Jones said in the statement. "... These additional resources are a welcome addition to our joint efforts as we work to combat more extreme wildfires in the face of our changing climate."

Leaders with Napa County Fire and Cal Fire's aviation unit are working on where to place the additional helicopter assigned to Napa County, officials said in the Saturday statement.

In addition to the helicopter and crew members to be assigned to Napa County, Cal Fire also will base another 1,000-gallon helicopter at its Boggs Mountain base in Lake County in time for this year's wildfire season, according to Napa County Fire Chief Geoff Belyea. That aircraft will be able to reach Napa County airspace in less than five minutes once airborne, he said in the Saturday announcement.

Despite the promise of stronger backup from California, advocates of a plan to base two small fixed-wing firefighting planes in Napa County said Sunday their proposal remains as critical to local safety as ever.

The environmental coalition Growers/Vintners for Responsible Agriculture seeks to have a pair of Fire Boss single-engine aircraft on local standby this year, with each craft able to scoop 800 gallons of water at a time from Lake Berryessa or Lake Hennessey and drop repeated payloads on a wildfire. The group is offering to rent the planes from a private contractor for six months and raise the $1.5 million fee if it can work out an agreement with Cal Fire.

"We feel that the Fire Boss is just another tool we need to use, and we need to use it now," said Randy Dunn, founder of Dunn Vineyards in Howell Mountain and a member of the Growers/Vintners group, who predicted fixed-wing planes would be both cheaper to operate and quicker into the air than helicopters. "... If we have another fire, or smoke like we've had, the wine industry is going to be severely damaged even more than it was, and it will lead to huge economic downturns, huger than what we have now."

Any resistance to the officer by the state or county is "just boneheaded thinking," added Mike Hackett, another Growers/Vintners member who also lives at Howell Mountain. "We can get two aircraft that can do six or seven runs in the first hour and just keep going. A helicopter is expensive to operate and slow to get going.

"Why choose second best? It's just boneheaded. We can do much, much better and we can do it free (to the county). It's just outrageous that it's not happening. There isn't a citizen in Napa County that's opposed to having Fire Boss planes parked full time. Everyone in county wants it, but a boneheaded bureaucracy is opposing it. It's inexcusable; people should stand up and holler on this one."

$42 million plan discussed at Napa Valley wildfire summit

Local wildfire prevention advocates want $42 million over five years for fuel reduction and similar projects to prevent a repeat of large fires that in recent years destroyed about 1,500 homes, businesses and other structures.

The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday held what amounted to a wildfire summit. Wine industry officials and residents implored the county to take further preventative steps before another fire season begins.

“Napa will burn again,” said Christopher Thompson of Napa Communities Firewise Foundation. “We now have a plan of action and we need funding ... and we need lots of it.”

County Fire Chief Geoff Belyea asked for $6.4 million in the short-term. County supervisors responded by agreeing that the county should find the money to make that contribution.

“This is not an option,” Board of Supervisors Chairperson Alfredo Pedroza said. “We always have to spend money after disasters and we spend it in the millions of dollars. This is about spending it proactively … while it’s a bold ask, I think it’s a very appropriate ask.”

The ask is only for a year, with more money needed in coming years for more fuel reduction and to manage existing fuel breaks. Supervisor Ryan Gregory said the county ultimately may have to look at a sustainable money source, whether it be a sales tax, parcel tax or whatever.

Napa Communities Firewise Foundation is a nonprofit that works with 12 community fire safe councils on such projects as vegetation management.

The foundation and Belyea unveiled a $42 million, five-year fuel reduction plan to better protect both rural areas and cities. The challenge will be securing all of that money from the county and through grants.

—Barry Eberling, Napa Valley Register

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