LAKEPORT, Calif. — Several Lake County fire agencies, nonprofits and Pacific Gas and Electric are joining together to take a new approach to keeping Lake County fire safe and resilient.

The Hometown Wildfire Safety Collaborative is a partnership whose members include Pacific Gas and Electric, the Clear Lake Environmental Research Center, Northshore Fire Protection District, Lake County Fire Chiefs Association, California Fire Chiefs Association, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, US Forest Service and Cal Fire.

An event to celebrate the collaboration’s launch was held outside, at the Library Park gazebo, during an unseasonably warm Friday afternoon to announce the launch of the Hometown Wildfire Safety Collaborative .

PG&E said the collaboration will provide financial support for local fuel reduction projects; an updated community wildfire protection plan specific to Lake County, which utilizes computer modeling to predict wildfire pathways to inform community discussions on the most effective and strategic locations for fuel reduction projects; and an environmentally friendly biomass usage program.

Will Evans, president of the Clear Lake Environmental Research Center, or CLERC, said his organization focuses on economic and environmental problems facing Lake County, with wildfire being one of the biggest.

An example: The Konocti interface in and around the Kelseyville Riviera, which was the focus of a Cal Fire fuel break project in 2017, is one of the most dangerous places in California for evacuations, Evans said.

Evans said they faced three key questions: How to stabilize funding for their work; how to prioritize projects; and what to do with the massive amount of wood from dead and dying trees across Lake County, the result not just of wildfires but of disease and insects.

He said the best minds in California have been thinking about these questions, and the collaboration is meant to further that work.

At the collaboration’s heart is the fuel reduction partnership between CLERC and the Northshore Fire Protection District, which created the Hogback Ridge fuels crew.

In the fall, PG&E launched the collaboration with a $500,000 grant to CLERC, which Evans said will allow them to increase the crew’s wages and stabilize their wages.

Evans said CLERC also is developing a dynamic fire pathways model that will protect people and interrupt the progression of damaging fires.

When it comes to what to do with all of that wood, Evans said they are conducting a pilot project with a mobile biochar manufacturing machine.

Last year, CLERC received a grant to replant 1,065 acres of forest land. That will require removing the dead trees already there, which Evans said has been estimated to be 75,000 tons of biomass.

He said that led to the question of what it will take to get a biochar facility going.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines biochar as a “stable solid, rich in carbon that is made from organic waste material or biomass that is partially combusted in the presence of limited oxygen.”

Evans said they are looking at rolling out the project in the Mendocino National Forest and in the Cobb and Middletown areas over the coming 12 months.

Chief Dave Winnacker of the Moraga Orinda Fire Protection District, a board member of the California Fire Chiefs Association, said wildfire is a pressing problem.

While most of the focus has been on the focus of fire and its destruction, not as much attention has been placed on the fact that California is a fire dependent landscape. Winnacker emphasized the necessity of all residents to work together to be a “fire adapted” community.

He said there also has been a lot of effort to address fire itself, but fewer efforts to reduce loss and nonrenewals in the fire insurance space.

Lake County can be an example of success at adapting and thriving in the fire landscape, with Winnacker suggesting that the collaboration can set conditions for longer term goals of improving the health of landscapes that depend on fire.

Genny Biggs of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation focuses on special projects that include wildfire. She said too many communities are vulnerable to extreme wildfire.

She spoke of the work with PG&E to protect communities and disrupt fire pathways, and effort that requires innovation. Based on the collaboration, Biggs said Lake County will be a strong example across the western United States.

Northshore Fire Chief Mike Ciancio thanked the agency partners, his own staff and board, and CLERC for their support and faith in his vision for forming the Hogback Ridge fuels crew, which he started “from zero.”

He said he believes reputation shows through work, and the crew is working very hard every day.

“It’s a village, right? We’re a village here,” said Ciancio, explaining it will take collaboration to make the plan work and have a more resilient community.

He described how he went to the Habematolel Pomo tribe first to explain his vision for the fuels crew, and the tribe ran with it and funded it — including the crew’s wages — for the first year.

Then the Board of Supervisors heard his presentation and the county of Lake purchased the equipment.

The crew is keeping busy year-round with fuel reduction projects. PG&E said that, since September, the crew has completed several local wildfire safety projects that include creating defensible space between dwellings and vegetation.

They’ve also focused on vegetation management work around some of Lake County’s elderly and assisted living facilities that may not have the resources to execute the wildfire safety work themselves.

Team members told Lake County News they’re now working on a project along Elk Mountain Road near Upper Lake.

Ciancio said they’re also trained to fight fires, and have worked on a dozen so far. That allows his department to release resources back to their stations during incidents.

He said PG&E’s financial support through the collaboration is allowing them to increase wages and to add more members. Five new crew members will be hired, bringing the total crew size to 16.

The crew also will work on community wildfire protection plan projects, and Ciancio said his agency will work with CLERC to determine priorities.

Tom Nixon, a retired State Parks ranger and CLERC board member, said of the collaboration, “It’s all about building partnerships.”

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.