A mower sparked a vegetation fire along Burke Hill Drive south of Ukiah Wednesday afternoon, the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority reported.
UVFA Battalion Chief Justin Buckingham said he was first on scene after the fire was reported in the 4900 block of Burke Hill Drive, and that people working in the area when the fire was sparked were “spraying it with water when I arrived.”
However, Buckingham said that the crew on-scene had also been using a mower which “definitely appears to have started the fire,” though luckily there flames were quickly contained and extinguished.
“The grass still has a bit of moisture, so the fire did not spread all that fast,” he said, adding that the blaze was also contained well on both sides, “so there wasn’t that much room to spread.”
Ultimately, fire crews from the UVFA and Cal Fire kept the blaze to only about a quarter of an acre, and none of the surrounding structures, which were briefly threatened, were damaged. There were also no injuries.
When asked if he felt that Mendocino County (and much of the state of California) was entering “peak fire season,” Buckingham said he did, particularly for the inland areas, and especially if “we keep having the wind we’re getting, as that dries out the fuels very quickly,” noting that the still-green grass already has dry grass underneath it.
Given the danger posed by the mix of dry vegetation and wind, Buckingham said people needing to mow grass should only do it in the morning “before 10 a.m., when it is still cool out.” And if they are mowing tall grass, he said, they should not use a riding mower, which can strike a rock and cause a spark. Instead, he said the best tool for tall grass is a “string trimmer,” because it does not have a metal blade that can cause sparks.
So while it is definitely important to trim vegetation this time of year, he said it is also important to “do it at the right time, and with the right tools.”
A new tool the UVFA will have this year to help manage vegetation with be a new 11-person “fuels crew” that Buckingham said was hired thanks to a $7.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Community Wildfire Defense Program that the city of Ukiah received two years ago.
In a press release, city officials reported that the grant will fund the “Ukiah Valley and Mendocino Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project, (and include the) hiring a crew of 11 people who will conduct defensible space inspections, maintain current fuel breaks in shaded and non-shaded areas, perform defensible space work, conduct prescribed burns in appropriate areas to restore fire adapted ecosystems, conduct project assessments, engage the relevant impacted communities, and increase community fire resiliency in the Ukiah Valley area and throughout Mendocino County” for five years.
This week, Buckingham said that six of the 11 people had completed the hiring process, and five more were in the background-checking phase.
Also responding to Wednesday’s fire were personnel from the Hopland Fire Protection District, Cal Fire, Caltrans, and the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.
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