Photos: Contra Costa Fire Hand Crew clears Martinez olive grove

Chris Bachman, Contra Costa County Fire Protection District Public Information Officer, told this news organization more about the four-acre grove on Monday, including how clearing a shaded fire break there fits into ongoing preventative maintenance throughout the county:

“The crew 12 consists of 12-14 fire control workers. Then there’s 2 captains. They work 12-hour shifts. The idea is in the past, this is our third season that we’ve had them, but in the past they were only funded through fire season.

This year, starting in April, they’re going to be funded now year-round because of Measure X funding. And the goal is in the off-season or in the early morning, before it gets too hot and we typically start running fires, we, throughout Contra Costa County, focus on vegetation management and fuel reduction projects.

That’s one of the areas we’re working on right now with the city of Martinez, up above Rankin Park and the olive grove:

We’re going to create a shaded fuel break through the olive grove along the previous fire break that was cut in and then along the back of the homes to create the defensible space — both protecting the olive grove if a structure fire were to break out or if a fire was to come through these hills — provide us that defensible space to protect the homes. So it’s kind of serving two purposes.

This is just one example of projects that we’ve done throughout Contra Costa County from evacuation routes to shaded fuel breaks, vegetation management to create defensible space in high-hazard areas.”

Contra Costa Fire Hand Crew 12 fire control worker Cole Davis clears a shaded fuel break in an olive grove in Martinez, Calif., on Monday, July 11, 2022. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)