PG&E Plugs In Funding To Prepare And Prevent Wildfires

Photo by: Tracey Petersen

Sonora, CA – To enhance wildfire safety and preparedness in the 2020 fire season, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is plugging $2.3 million into local communities.

The monies will fund local Fire Safe Council and non-profit organizations projects across 28 counties, including the Mother Lode. Three projects are slated for Calaveras and one each in Tuolumne and Amador counties.

“With the increased wildfire threat our state faces, we all must continue to adapt to these challenges and find ways to reduce the risk of wildfire…These projects create fuel breaks to protect communities, clear vegetation from evacuation routes, and help underserved customers create critical defensible space to protect their homes from fire across our service area,” said Andy Vesey, PG&E Utility CEO and President.

The funding will fuel approximately 41 projects throughout the state, which must be completed by November of this year. Executive Director of the California Fire Safe Council Patty Ciesla shares, “The flexibility and immediate availability of PG&E funding allows for immediate use in communities as well as matching funds for federal grants.”

PG&E provided this list of work being done in the Mother Lode:

• Highway 108 Fire Safe Council $65,000: The project will protect the community of Cedar Ridge and upslope residents, local PG&E service lines and the main Tuolumne County domestic water system managed jointly by Tuolumne Utilities District (TUD) and PG&E with a planned shaded fuel break.
• Calaveras Foothills Fire Safe Council $100,000: The Council will employ a contractor to provide no-cost door-to-door chipping services to Calaveras County Residents as well as 100′ defensible space for Seniors and Disabled residents who qualify.
• Calaveras Resource Conservation District $81,100: The central mandate of this Project is to remove woody fuels along important community access roads near PG&E facilities in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) along Highway 49 in two privately owned Homeowner Association subdivisions between Mokelumne Hill and San Andreas in central  Calaveras County. These roads are not maintained by County or State.
• Calaveras Healthy Impact Product Solutions (CHIPS) $100,000: The project will focus on roadside clearance in Glencoe and West Point to improve ingress/egress for emergency evacuation and first responders on private road networks that lead to county roads and the Highway 26 corridor.
• Amador Fire Safe Council $100,000 The project will focus on road edge clearing to create safer and improved ingress and egress.  This will entail fuels treatment for 20 feet on both sides of targeted roads.  Targeted roads are those in the Buckhorn, East Jackson, Pioneer, Pine Grove, and Volcano areas.

Since 2014, the utility has provided $17 million to local Fire Safe Councils and non-profit organizations to fund more than 300 projects in Northern and Central California.