Creating defensible space around our properties and along evacuation routes is on everyone’s mind. However, it can be quite frustrating to put many hours of hard work on your property – or spend thousands to hire someone else to do so – and yet still find that your risk from wildfire is significant due to a neighbor’s unmaintained property or rights of way. It’s even more frustrating when that neighbor is a federal agency whose mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) owns a total of 15,373 acres of land across 276 parcels in Nevada County. Out of 978 square miles in the county (or 625,920 acres), that translates to 2.46% of all land. Some of these parcels are within neighborhoods and some are the subject of increasing concerns among residents who feel that their defensible space efforts may be for naught if a neighboring BLM parcel remains unmanaged and, in at least one case, may impact an evacuation route.
The Bureau of Land Management’s Mother Lode Field Office (for our region) offers a streamlined process for property owners to get permission to do defensible space work on BLM land (if necessary to achieve 100 feet of defensible space treatment around your home). This work must be done at the initiating property owner’s expense; BLM simply acts as an advisor / inspector to the project. Reach out to Lee Helgeson at BLM to get more information on this process: dhelgeson@blm.gov.
Do you live near a concerning parcel owned by BLM or any other state or federal agency? If so please reach out to me to let me know the parcel’s location and whether you have previously contacted the parcel’s owner with your concerns: Heidi.Hall@NevadaCountyCA.gov