Amador County – Amador Supervisors discussed a draft Pine Grove/Volcano Community Conservation Wildfire Protection Plan on Tuesday, and directed staff of the Amador Fire Safe Council to take it back and go through comments by the county’s environmental consultant, and then take that to all of the partner agencies for reconsideration.

County environmental consultant John Hofman said he was not part of the Plan’s steering committee, as Amador Fire Safe Council drafted the plan, but it was his understanding that once the core team finished the wildfire plan, it would go back to the steering committee. He said the decision makers have not been involved in deciding what was in the plan. The council used a template provided by Sierra Nevada Conservancy, whose $50,000 grant is funding the plan.

Supervisor Ted Novelli asked if the Bureau of Land Management was to be consulted and to be involved in the process from beginning to end. Hofmann said that was true, but BLM also has not been involved. Hofmann said the main purpose of the Community Conservation Wildfire Protection Plan was to allow communities meaningful input on the management of forest lands. He said this particular planning area “has very little federal lands.”

The Volcano and Pine Grove area was chosen for the first county wildfire plan because it was identified by studies as the highest risk to wildfires in Amador County. Hofmann said the plan is put in place to “prioritize federal funding.”

Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said the “Wildland Urban Interface” was a major part of the plan, and he commended the Amador Fire Safe Council for its work on the Plan. Plasse said he would “like to move in a direction of working more collaboratively with the Fire Safe Council.”

Giving direction, Supervisor Richard Forster said it was pretty clear they wanted Hofmann to go back to work with the Fire Safe Council, to look at adding Hofmann’s statements, and remedy the grammatical errors.

Plasse said this Community Wildfire Protection Plan “does become a legal document, and he did not want to have ideology become part of that legal document.”

Supervisor Brian Oneto said it was “kind of like a philosophical document,” and “some of that philosophy I don’t really agree with.” He said he would like to put it forward to the other signatories (Cal Fire and the County fire chiefs) for their opinion, and reprinting it would be his preference, rather than using Fire Safe Council consultant Jim Simmons’ urging to use an errata attachment. Oneto said “I would like to see the whole document reprinted.”

Plasse said he agreed with Forster that the “grammatical errors lessen the credibility of the document.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.