Fire Season Preparations in the Berkeley Hills

Piles of boards and branches down hill from our house

 Fire season cleanup is in high gear in my North Berkeley hills neighborhood. Piles of dead branches can be seen in the front and back of many houses and every day we hear the loud whine of chainsaws and the whir of chippers in our neck of the woods. Because fires can sweep in from forested Tilden Park up the hill from us, this area is especially vulnerable and cleanup efforts are taken seriously.

Our back slope was littered with old wood discarded when Dean tore down an old retaining wall he rebuilt in 1991. Our downhill neighbors' complaints spurred us into action. Everyone's nervous!

It took 7 hours for Carlos Meza's yard cleanup and hauling service to clear out the piles of wood. Three workers filled their trucks twice. and here's the result- a barren hill.

Last year we had two trees cut down which were dangerously near the house - a no-no in a fire zone. Tree services are in high demand and all over Berkeley efforts to comply with fire safety regulations have left dismayingly bare yards. These businesses cut down trees and haul them away after they feed the trunks and branches into a chipper.

Complete Tree Service sent a skilled crew

                           This is how they did it!   We watched the whole scary event from our deck. 

Two doors down, our neighbor's yard exemplifies the clear-cut look. A few weeks ago the house was hidden by green trees and bushes, now look at it!

The city has a fire fuel chipper program, so many home owners clean up their property and leave piles of debris just off the road, awaiting their designated pickup day.

Piles line Keeler, a few blocks above us

                                                       Our next door neighbor's collection

This one's on Shasta Road

All these piles start to look alike. This one was hauled away a few days ago in a big truck. They didn't wait tor the city to come

      

We participate in a close knit neighborhood group called Shake and Bake which was formed to oversee emergency earthquake and fire preparedness. We communicate frequently by email and every September we meet in person to discuss group business and enjoy a yummy potluck. For the last few years these meetings have taken place on someone's deck for obvious reasons

Jill, our next door neighbor, designed this banner which should be displayed outside one's house in an emergency, to signify that the inhabitants are safe and have no need to be rescued.

Our Westinghouse generator in it's wooden sound insulating box

Like many of our neighbors, we installed a generator to prepare for preemptive PG&E  power outages which could leave us without power for long (or short) periods. After experiencing some of these, we decided to find a generator.  In 2020 during the Pandemic, it wasn't easy to find generators, much less parts to install them, but we persevered. Dean even built a sound deadening box to shield our household from the machine's excessive noise; he also converted the generator from gas to propane. Both of these were major projects which will pay off if the power goes out.

It's still cool and foggy up here, but we're not fooled. Sooner of later there will be heat waves with dangerously high winds and the smell of smoke from fires near and far. So we're checking items off our to-do list and making every effort to prepare for any emergency Mother Nature throws our way