Vegetation Management Starts Up Again

View of the project are is to the left of St. Mary's

Peterson's Crew Gets Started.

Dense chaparral within the project area.

After more than a month of delay due to the events associated with the Tea Fire, Peterson's crews are back up and running. They started on what is left of the project area today. They initially were abel to complete nearly 1.5 acres of the project before the fire and have 5 acres remaining to be complete.

Once finished the Eastern side of the Community Fuels Treatment Network will be complete and in line for future maintainence. We are in the process of developing our next project area plans which will include areas on the Norther border of the City limits above Ontare, San Roque and Santa Teresita.

St. Mary's Vegetation Management Revised

Due to the delays that have occured since the Tea Fire, we have revised the current Vegetation Management project, located around the St. Mary Seminary, to incompass areas of the project that were left unburned. Nearly 15 acres were within the Tea Fire burn area leaving Peterson's crews just over 5 acres to complete.


We are making the proper adjustments and hope to get them started again before the first of the year. The map shows the remaining project area that was not burned in yellow. The rest of the area was within the Tea Fire Burn.

Some pictures of the project area are below.

Road Clearance Continues

After short delay due to areas affected by the Tea Fire, we have started up our Road Clearance project in efforts to complete the project by next week.

Crews finished clearance on El Cielito on Tuesday and will pick back up on Las Canoas for Friday. They will be working from the Rattlesnake Trailhead towards the City Limits.

Sections of APS from Garcia to Los Olivos and APS from 5-points Round-A-Bout to Guiterrez St, as well as portions of Foothill Road (within City Limits), will round out the project completion next week.

APS x Arbolado

Crews did a lot of work to increase the visibility, access and reduce the amount of flammable vegetation at the corner of Alameda Padre Serra and Arbolado.

Hillcrest Road Clearance Complete

Some great BEFORE and AFTER shots of work completed on Hillcrest Rd. Work performed on this, and all the roads in the High Fire Hazard Area, helps to maintain public evacuation routes and increase emergency vehicle response times into the area.

Veg Mgmt - Week 2

Peterson's Tree Care crews have been hard at work.
They are making excellent progress and work is being accomplished right in line with our current time frames.

The weekend rain didn't seem to slow things down a bit. If anything, it made for much cooler working conditions when they returned on Monday.

After removing dead vegetation and some large exotic plants, a big, very mature Oak was uncovered. In this picture you can see how the crews have limbed it up to the 6 ft level and removed the fire ladders that allow a managable ground fire to get into the canopy.

Road Clearance Crews off Camino Viejo

Road Clearance Map

We are now more than half way through this years road clearance project. I have included a map so you can visually see what we have accomplished and what we have left.

Crews are anticipated to finished Aleeda, El Rancho and Santecito tomorrow.

1st Week of Veg Management Complete

St. Mary's crews were off to a great start during the first week of the project. They continued to work through the hot temperatures and we saw a lot of progress. By the end of the week they had nearly made it to the "Stations of the Cross Trail" which is located mid-slope between the Seminary and the dirt road where they started on day 1.

Arbolado-Francheschi Finished

Despite the blazing temperatures last week. Crews were diligent in finishing scheduled roads. Both Arbolado and Francheschi are now complete.

Road Clearance Moves Forward

Paseo Ferrelo -
Before & After

Mission Ridge

Crews have compled just over 6 miles of the marked 14 mile project.

Veg Mgmt - Day 2

Work is well underway.

Veg Mgmt Starts Today

We hit the ground running today with the first of many projects aimed at creating the Community Fuels Treatment Network along the upper edge of Santa Barbara City limits.

The network will provide a break between the continuous decadent stands of chaparral fuel outside the City boundary and the City area. This provides a strategic last line of defense for fire protection resources to suppress a wildland fire before it enters more highly populated areas of the City.This year’s project involves reducing the amount of flammable vegetation on over 20 acres of land in the Extreme Foothill Zone by approximately 1/3 to 2/3. Vegetation management will be targeted on the removal of flammable vegetation (brush and under story) by preferentially removing exotic plants, thinning, pruning and limbing of vegetation to remove fire ladders, limbing up of oak over story, pruning out dead material, and thinning out continuous areas of brush using a mosaic pattern.