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Supervisors Thomas and Hidahl recommending the Board direct the Chief Administrative Office to convene an El Dorado County Vegetation Management and Resiliency Working Group. The working group would ideally include public, private, faith-based and non-profit organizations to collaborate on lessons learned from the Caldor Fire in order to define funding streams and initiate a robust, community-based resiliency and vegetation management program that would accelerate the current County efforts. Resiliency measures to improve public safety on both public and private lands from wildfire in El Dorado County could be a key component of the resultant recommendations.
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DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
On August 14, 2021, the Caldor Fire erupted at 6:54 p.m. east of Omo Ranch and south of Grizzly Flats. On the night of August 16, 2021, extreme fire behavior overnight caused an immediate, mandatory evacuation of the Grizzly Flats/Somerset and Happy Valley area as the incident grew to 6500 acres and devastated the community of Grizzly Flats. By September 13, 2021, the Caldor Fire had swept eastward through El Dorado County, consumed 219,267 acres, ravaged 1003 structures, and had threatened to destroy the Lake Tahoe basin.
While fire has historically been part of the natural landscape, decades of failed policies and mismanagement has resulted in unprecedented catastrophic fires in both the wildland urban interface as well as in the national forest itself. Consequently, 2021 was the first year in the state's history that wildfires crossed the Sierra Nevada with both the Dixie and the Caldor Fires. Cal Fire Director Thom Porter reiterated that the fire behavior in California is unlike any we have seen before.
As El Dorado County residents closely monitored the Caldor Fire’s aggressive assault, it became evident that structural damage was greatly minimized by the extreme vegetation management and defense efforts that fire crews enacted on private and public prope...
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