2024 Newsletters

​December 2024

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We wanted to share with you the good news that our Firewise renewal application for 2025 was approved!

Thank you to those of you that filled out the annual survey and all the work you do to make our community safer.

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Happy Holidays and best wishes for the new year.

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September/October 2024

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Happy Fall (even if we are dealing with triple digits). For our September/October newsletter we have a few items to bring to your attention:

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1) TONIGHT! The San Lorenzo Valley Firewise Community invites you to the Meet the Fire Chiefs community event today, Thurs, Oct 3, 6:00-8:00PM at the Zayante Fire Station, 7700 E Zayante Rd.

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Here is a description/invitation from fellow Firewise organizer Tina Castle:

"Meet the Fire Chiefs is a fantastic opportunity for the community to meet with the San Lorenzo Valley Fire Chiefs to hear important updates from them on key topics, discuss local issues, and to ask them all our fire-related questions. Organized by the San Lorenzo Valley Firewise Community, this event aims to foster increased communication and collaboration between the community and the local Fire Protection Districts, and increased neighborhood engagement towards reducing regional wildfire risk. Light refreshments will be served.

RSVP and submit your questions: https://forms.gle/UXEs7U5GVsnaQC6E7"

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2) THIS WEEKEND! Central Coast Good Fire Fair at Henry Cowell State Park in Felton, is happening this Saturday Oct 5th, 10am-3pm.

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From Lynn Sestak, our county Firewise coordinator: "There will be live fire demos, hose lay races, fire ecology walks, home hardening for wildfire, food trucks and a kid zone. Rx burn season is right around the corner, so come check it out!"

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3) Renewal application Survey request coming soon

Be on the lookout for an e-mail from steering committee member Patricia Odello inviting you to participate in a short survey (administered via Google forms) about your efforts to harden your property. This is similar to last year but substantially shorter and easier to fill out. Please do so at your earliest convenience.

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4) Thank You

While we are preparing to submit our annual renewal application we were also reminded about the tremendous neighborhood cleanup efforts by members of this community. We wanted to thank you again for making us all safer!

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August 2024

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For our August newsletter we have a few items to bring to your attention:

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1) Home Ignition Zone (HIZ)

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A) See here for more information about what the HIZ is and how to help prepare your home and property against a wild fire: https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/preparing-homes-for-wildfire

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B) HIZ assessments: Firewise Coordinator and Santa Cruz County HIZ Assessor Lynn Sestak has given us the green light to once again promote this great program. It's a free educational service that residents can request, to have a trained volunteer provide suggestions about home hardening and defensible space. The process takes about an hour, and is scheduled at a mutually convenient time between resident and assessor. 

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To get your own FREE HIZ assessment scheduled, please fill out a request here: https://www.firesafesantacruz.org/HIZ

 

Frank's comment here: I had the HIZ assessment done last year and found it very valuable. I have already implemented several of the recommendations and am making more progress over time.

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C) Replacing Flammable materials in the HIZ: One of the concrete things you should consider doing is replacing more flammable materials in the HIZ such as wood chips or gorilla hair with less flammable materials such as gravel.

 

2) Marin Firewise: A treasure trove of great resources: https://firesafemarin.org/

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We will be pointing to some of these materials in the months to come. For today we are pointing you to their resources section:

https://firesafemarin.org/resources/

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For instance, check our their videos. As an example is the link to the video on go-bags: https://firesafemarin.org/articles/pack-a-go-bag/

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3) Neighborhood clean-up day is this Saturday, 8/17.  Instead of meeting on the corner of Marion and Quail Hollow, we will be meeting on the corner of Marion and Eduardo at 8:00am and will work our way down Marion.

 

4) When the Next CZU Happens, Where Will You Go? 

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Ben Lomond Fire Chief Stacie Brownlee and Zayante Fire Chief Jeff Maxwell will share their experiences and observations about evacuations.

We hope you can join us Monday, August 19th, 6:00pm-7:30pm, at the San Lorenzo Valley School District headquarters, 325 Marion Ave.

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July 2024

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For our (short) July newsletter we have a couple of items to bring to your attention:

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1) From the organizers of Felton's Forest Lakes Firewise:

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The Forest Lakes Firewise community will be hosting an event at Roaring Camp (Felton) this coming Sunday, July 21st, 11am-5pm.

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This event is titled "Santa Cruz Mountains Firewise Festival at Roaring Camp" on Sunday July 21st. 

Please see details here: Santa Cruz Mountains Firewise Festival at Roaring Camp

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(https://givebutter.com/firewisefestival)

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2) PG&E is hosting a Wildfire Safety Webinar:

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Wednesday, July 24 | 5:30 - 6:30 p.m.

Join online or alternatively you can also join via phone by calling 888-469-0694, conference ID: 8434585

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3) Save the date: our own upcoming educational event on Evacuation Planning with our local fire chiefs Stacie Brownlee and Jeff Maxwell has been scheduled:

Monday, August 19th, 6-7pm, at the board room at Quail Hollow School, 325 Marion Avenue, Ben Lomond (same location as last Fall).

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The focus of the event is on the issue of evacuation planning, such as assisting neighbors in understanding evacuation routes, best practices, and the alert systems for Santa Cruz County.

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May 2024

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Happy Spring. For our May newsletter we have two main items to bring to your attention:

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1) Spring Cleaning

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As the lush green grass around us is slowly turning brown, it is time to be working on cutting the grass and putting the 5ft hardening, defensible space around your home on your radar screen. Any rain from this point is not going to make a difference, so it's time to take the grass down and remove the clippings. 

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With the abundance of rain this year the fuel moisture in the soil is very good. But nonetheless, NOW is the time to get stuff cleaned up. From this point on until we get significant rain (over 1 inch, so not likely until Fall) the threat of a wildfire starting and spreading unfortunately is only growing. We have been told that further inland the state has already experienced grass fires with structure losses.

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2) Facebook Group 

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We'd like to thank our neighbor Kelly Cuffe for setting up and being willing to moderate a Facebook group to assist us with our communications. The purpose of the group is to allow us all to discuss important issues, share links and keep a searchable record of these.

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Kelly will be sending you an invite to join the group: "Quail Hollow FireWise Community"

In addition to Facebook we are also planning to set up a What's App group which will be for more immediate communications such as reminders about upcoming events or, in case of emergencies, for direct communication.