Cal Fire conducts 170-acre controlled burn near Pismo Beach
PISMO BEACH, Calif. -- CAL FIRE San Luis Obispo County, in cooperation with several other local and regional and state agencies, conducted a prescribed burn just east of Pismo Beach on Friday.
The 170-acre burn took place along Thousand Hills Road, which is located a few miles east of the city off of Price Canyon Road.
"Today's prescribed burn is part of a multi-phased project to help better protect the communities of Avila, Shell Beach, Pismo Beach and the Five Cities area," said CAL FIRE Battalion Chief Paul Lee.
Lee said the the long-running fire mitigation project has been ongoing for several years.
"This is here to help reduce some of the fuels, help with ecosystem restoration, as well as protect the homes in the community in the urban wildland interface," said Lee.
For several hours, under mostly overcast conditions firefighters worked up and down the rugged hillside, setting fires intended to mimic a lightning strike.
We want to be as natural as possible," said Lee. "Starting from the top and working our way down, very low intensity and keep it within the control line, and once this is done, fuels will grow back, they'll be very green and very little dead component, which if we do get a fire started back here, or a fire moves through this area, it will hit this unit and slow itself down significantly, allowing firefighters to pick it up."
Friday's prescribed burn comes at an opportune time. After an extremely wet winter, the Thousand Hills Ranch hillsides, as well as much of the Central Coast landscape is covered in thick brush.
"The grass is really thick," said Toni Davis. CAL FIRE San Luis Obispo County public information officer. "We've had a lot of rain this year and there's been breaks in between that rain, which causes a new grass crop, making for a very thick and very tall grass crop. If and when it does start, and those wildland fires are a threat it's going to have a lot of vegetation to burn, so we're mitigating some of that out here."
In addition to CAL FIRE, other agencies taking part in the burn are SLO County Fire Safe Council, SLO County Air Pollution Control District, the National Weather Service, the California Air Resources Board, as well as local landowners.
Should conditions continue to be favorable moving forward, CAL FIRE is hoping it can provide additional prescribed burns to other county locations in the future.
"We'd like to continue as long as we possibly can, as long as its safe and as long as the weather allows," said Lee. "It looks like we might have some decent weather here over the next couple of weeks, which will allow us to do some more burning."
