Amador County – The first county Community Conservation Wildfire Protection Plan, for the Pine Grove and Volcano area, was scrutinized by Amador County Supervisors on Tuesday, who said decision makers should consider the county consultant’s comments for the draft document.
Supervisors directed Amador Fire Safe Council to get with county environmental consultant John Hofmann, to reconsider his suggestions.
Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said that “comments made by the consultant are the comments of the Board of Supervisors,” and Hofmann, as a member of the Wildfire Protection Plan steering committee is a signatory of the Board of Supervisors. Plasse said this was the first of several county wildfire plans, and “we should be setting the bar high.”
Plasse said Cal-Fire wants to be more involved in the plan, which is funded with a $50,000 grant from the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, which also supplied a template for the wildfire plan.
Supervisor Richard Forster said he did not expect every comment by Hofmann to go in, but he expected it to be discussed. He said misspellings should be eliminated and he wanted “everything to be as correct and as complete as possible.” Fire Safe Council consultant Jim Simmons said he wrote it and would take blame for typos, but Forster said the Conservancy’s “template came with plenty of errors.”
Supervisor Brian Oneto said he was not sure he liked some parts of the Conservancy’s template. He said it “inserts ideological thoughts,” which he had a problem with inserting into a wildfire plan. Plasse agreed, noting one listed practice of preserving canopies to encourage shade for development of pine trees. Plasse said it should “use language to reflect the local government.”
Simmons said a template from the California Fire Alliance (which Oneto suggested) was too simple. Oneto said if it was easier to read, more people would actually read it. Simmon said that the plan was strictly for Pine Grove and Volcano, and that a different document would come with the wildfire plan for the high country.
Forster said he did not want to shelve the Conservancy’s template, but he wanted to correct its logic and “errors in their thinking process.”
Plasse said “ideological statements” do not need to be in the wildfire plan, and he asked Hofmann if he would like a re-review of his comments. Hofmann said that because the other 2/3rds of the signatories have signed off on this, they should reconvene the decision makers, that is, CDF and the county fire chiefs, to “have them decide what’s important and what’s not important” to include in the plan.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
