Our Progress

We are grateful to CAL FIRE and California Climate Investments for funding this critical wildfire preparedness work in the Wildland Urban Interface in and around Ojai. To date, with the help of our hardworking and outstanding crew members, we have succeeded in removing a substantial portion of nonnative, invasive, incendiary, and ember-cast producing trees from the northern reaches of our community.  

As most homes that burn down during wildfires are ignited by embers and not the flame front of the wildfire itself, removal of problem trees greatly increases our chances of avoiding wind-driven ember storms that can lead to loss of life and structures during future wildfires. Property and homeowners are enthusiastic participants in this project.  Though we have removed a small number of other problem trees, to date the overwhelming majority of trees removed were Eucalyptus and Mexican Fan Palm.  

Eucalypti:

Our understanding is that during the twentieth century, fast growing Eucalypti were often planted in and around Ojai in the interest of providing shade on a short timeline, but there was a lack of awareness of the unsuitability of this species for our watershed. Due to the invasive nature of this species, in many locations we have found that a few planted trees quickly became monocultures spreading over large areas including seasonal creeks, thereby outcompeting more firewise natives such as Sycamores. In addition, the exponential spread of these thirsty trees has dramatically reduced the flow of water in the creeks they have encroached upon. Therefore, removal of Eucalypti not only increases wildfire readiness, it also reduces aridification of our watershed. 

Mexican Fan Palms:

Unlike Eucalypti, Mexican Fan Palm was planted in our watershed mostly for decorative purposes. Unfortunately, as these trees mature, the fronds grow to their beautiful splendor, then die and build up on the trunk of the tree as it grows taller, creating an incendiary palm frond “beard” that if ignited will generate thousands of embers. Also, like Eucalypti, Mexican Fan Palms continually spread seeds downwind and if left unabated, one palm can quickly multiply.  

Priority:

For the life of the project, priority is given for fuel reduction work on land parcels with disabled, elderly, and/or low-income residents who chose to participate.