Nine community-based organizations will soon receive a total of $1 million in grant funds from Sonoma County to manage vegetation on fire-prone land.
The various nonprofits and government agencies will now have 18 months to complete projects across nearly 50,000 acres in the Mayacamas Mountains and along the Russian River corridor — all of which must wrap up by Dec. 31, 2025.
The county Board of Supervisors approved the disbursement of funds as a consent calendar item during a meeting Tuesday.
“We can achieve more by working together instead of working alone,” Supervisor David Rabbitt said Tuesday. “Today’s investment and the partnerships we are forming through this program will make our county safer.”
The groups that were awarded varying amounts of the $1 million include Coast Ridge Forest Council, Conservation Corps North Bay, North Sonoma County COPE (Communities Organized to Prepare for Emergencies), Sonoma Ecology Center, Northern Sonoma County Fire Protection District, WiConduit and Hacienda Improvement Association, Occidental Community Services District, Fire Safe Sonoma, and Gold Ridge and Sonoma Resource Conservation Districts.
Their work will range from creating shaded fuel breaks and roadside treatments — or buffers that prevent fire from spreading — to grazing programs that will utilize animals to cut back on vegetation.
Priscilla Abercrombie, COPE board chair, said her organization is partnering with the Northern Sonoma County Fire Protection District for the project, for which COPE was awarded $100,000 and kicked in nearly $6,000 of its own matching funds to work on 20 acres along Wohler and Chalk Hill roads.
“Our organization is about community preparedness,” she said. “Neighbor helping neighbor is the central thing we go by so people are better prepared.”
An important step in the project, Abercrombie said, will be to work with landowners to clear vegetation on private land that presents community fire hazards.
“It can be very challenging to get homeowners to understand what the work is and understand that we’re not like making a moonscape,” she said. “The goal is to get rid of ladder fuels that climb up trees so that it’s safer — not to cut down trees.”
Serving Marin and Sonoma counties since 1982, Conservation Corps North Bay’s focus with its $100,000 will be to create shaded fuel breaks along 87 acres of St. Helena Road. The nonprofit will provide just over $400,000 in matching funds.
“St. Helena Road is actually an access point that is a one way in and out for the folks who live there,” CEO Angel Minor said. “So this work is going to help them be able to exit in an emergency.”
The funds were awarded as part of the Vegetation Management Grant Program, which was created by the Board of Supervisors in 2020 and designated $25 million from the county’s settlement with PG&E over damage caused by the 2017 wildfires.
“We have been very fortunate not to have experienced a wildfire of size or impact since 2020,” said Kim Batchelder, vegetation management coordinator for the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District — created by voter-approved county Measures A and C to protect land and resources. “We can only do our best to help these communities to prepare and work together with fire professionals, resource managers, foresters, etc. to plan and address wildfire mitigation.”