Paradise Resident DJ Gomes wasted no time once he climbed into his masticator Thursday morning. Splinters and dust filled the air as he drove the rumbling machine into a densely forested area off Coutolenc Road across from Jordan Hill Road and began mulching everything from brush to small trees. Gomes owns Crossfire Wildfire Preparation and was brought in by the Butte County Fire Safe Council to help thin about 30 acres of Paradise Irrigation District land.
“You could not walk through this area a week ago,” Calli-Jane DeAnda, executive director of the BCFSC, said.
DeAnda was leading a tour group of Cal Fire and forestry officials through the project area to give them an idea of the scope of the project. As a before and after example, DeAnda pointed to an area a few yards up the trail so thick with brush and overgrown vegetation it was difficult to see the forest through the trees.
Gomes would get to that soon enough. With a completion rate of about three acres a day, the project wasn’t yet halfway done.
“There is still a lot of work to do,” she said.
It was jarring to watch Gomes take down small trees. DeAnda said trees with a diameter of six-inches or less were okay to take down while still leaving a mosaic of young, middle-aged and older trees.
The shade from the taller trees keeps growth to a minimum, meaning crews won’t have to come back and re-work the area.
With smoke still lingering from the Butte and Valley fires in Almador, Calaveras and Lake counties, DeAnda said the importance of thinning projects is even more apparent.
Fuelbreak projects go a long way in preventing such catastrophes, she said.
She led the tour on a hike deeper in the forest, where Butte County Sheriff’s Office inmate crews were feeding limbs into a remote-controlled track chipper.
The chipper is Gomes’ latest acquisition. The machine is mobile and its tank-like tracks allow the hulking chipper to get into hard-to-reach places. Its remote control also gives operators a safety advantage, as no one has to be on the machine to operate it.
Thursday the chipper was operating on an inclining hill near the edge of Paradise Lake.
With BCSO deputies on watch, inmate crews used chain saws to cut through the thick brush and feed it into the chipper, which spit out the mulched remnants.
At the conclusion of the tour, DeAnda showed the group the area that Gomes started at the beginning of the tour.
The area was less dense with growth, while giving the younger trees room to grow.
The Coutolenc Road project, along with similar projects in Concow and near Feather River Hospital were paid for by a $155,000 grant from PG&E.
The project is set to be completed before the end of the month.
Those interested in this and other fire council projects can attend the council’s next meeting on Oct. 7 at 5:30 p.m. at Atria Paradise, located at 1007 Buschmann Road.
More information about the council can be found at www.thenet411.net or by calling 877-0984.
