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Nevada County Wood Use Center
Location: Grass Valley, CA *Sierra Nevada Region (Nevada County) Contact: Jan Blake jan.firesafe@sbcglobal.net To encourage compliance with a Nevada County Fire Plan that protects riparian areas and rare or endangered plants, and to help residents save money on burn permits, and improve air quality, which is compromised in winter by open air burning of woody biomass, the Wood Use Center is being developed by the non-profit FireSafe Council of Nevada County, is one of a suite of community prioritized projects to help mitigate the hazard of catastrophic wildfire within a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). Instead of burning residual material from fuels reduction and property cleanup, urban and rural property owners bring that biomass to a sort center at an existing transfer station where they currently bring their other recyclables and their garbage. There, it is sorted for different uses, and sold to help pay for further fuels reduction work in the community. "Our original funding for the Wood Use Center is a grant from BLM," says Jan Blake. "Our goal is to become financially self-sustaining by selling what we sort: larger pieces will become poles & landscape materials, much will be cut into firewood, and pulpy woody mass will be processed offsite for topsoil. The center will provide sorting jobs on site, as well as raw material for a topsoil business and local garden centers, and work for new and existing tree businesses." A CWPP must be in place for the BLM or any federal agency to fund local programs associated with fuels reduction. New air quality regulations in Nevada County and many other California counties also limit or prohibit open air burning, and even traditional fireplaces. "And it's not just the smoke that's problematic; too many wildfires have begun as household or farm burn piles." When burned in an enclosed system, that same woody mass is a sustainable, renewable, efficient and carbon-neutral heat source. These same regulations offer rebates for installing clean-burning woodstoves, preserving an existing market for firewood while improving air quality.
Associated projects in the FireSafe Council suite include a chipping program, a Special Needs and Seniors Assistance Program offering free firewood, and defensible space and fuels break programs. "We offer many tools to make this necessary work as easy as possible, and to help benefit as many people as possible." For more about:
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