AFS Jobs

Prescribed Burning - Colfax - April 28 2017

This project was started late last spring when the property owner needed to bring their defensible space back into compliance with their home owner's insurance requirements.

This time last year, the AFS team was able to cut and prep a 100' clearance off the structure, and meet the requirements for the insurance company. This included cutting and stacking of the underbrush into small burn piles around the property, and limbing up numerous trees.

Due to the timing of last season's work, we opted to wait on burning the material. We knew that a broadcast burn would be beneficial to the property owner, as it would decrease some of the small ground fuels that were covering the hillside. At the time, the weather was too dry and windy for such an operation, and the team decided to wait for more favorable conditions.

Waiting paid off, as we finally got a day of perfect weather, and we were able to burn all 20+ piles, and a full broadcast burn of the area around the structure. This property will now only require light seasonal maintenance for the next 2-5 years.

Prescribed Burning - Grass Valley - May 16 2017

This was an interesting project that came to us from a property owner who had recently had some work done by another service.

As explained to us, the owner was having a fence installed around part of the property. The contractor doing the fence work said they "had a friend" with a tractor who could do the brush clearing... As evidenced by the incredibly oversized brush pile we arrived to find, they may not have been fully qualified for the job.

Measuring over 10' deep in the middle, and with a footprint of roughly 25'x80', this is the largest single pile of material that we have ever been called to deal with. Due to the lack of planning on the part of the tractor operator, it was up to the AFS team to separate the material from the adjacent trees and brush, determine a way to burn the material in place, and prevent any spread of the fire to the untreated acreage downhill from the pile.

For us, the project went like clockwork. After securing the appropriate permits from Cal Fire, the AFS team was able to safely and efficiently burn the pile leaving only a few small root balls in its place.

Today is the best day to prepare for a wildfire.