• Oak to Timberline Fire Safe Council (OTFSC) proposes to create a shaded fuels break to help protect the residents, structures, community infrastructure, first responders, and visiting tourists in the WUI communities of Miramonte and Pinehurst from wildfires advancing from the largely unpopulated foothills to the south that are heavily laden with dense chaparral, mixed woodlands, and forest. This project ties in directly with three current OTFSC fuels reduction grants from CALFIRE (two OTFSC shaded fuel break projects and a large ingress/egress roadside fuel break project) and would also improve the safety of first responders by providing them a safer site at which to fight wildfires. Specifically, the main objective is provide a 200 ft wide shaded fuel break running along the Miramonte-Badger fire road, running from Miramonte's Orchard Dr, near the Miramonte Conservation Camp, to the Tulare County line Near CALFIRE's Badger Station, adding a 200ft wide fuels break offshoot about midway, running north to Looking Glass Lane and ending at Dunlap Rd, the major evacuation route in the area. Both mechanical and hand treatments will be used to treate the 121 acres of land in this project. The contractual fuels reduction work is specifically designed to minimize greenhouse gas emissions in its treatment of the harvested biomes, which will be masticated/chipped and broadcast for erosion control, repurposed locally (e.g. in the OTFSC Firewood for Families program) or composted to sequester the carbon. None of the biomass will be incinerated on-site.

• A shaded fuel break is exactly that: shaded. Removed brush is generally chipped or masticated into the soil to speed decay into mulch, which improves soil, water retention, and general forest health, and trees are left to provide shade.

• Oak to Timberline will contract with Licensed Timber Operators (LTO) to perform the work. On private lands, they will be prepared to thin and remove, masticate, or chip brush; fell small trees, and limb up larger trees to prevent fuel spread into the canopy. On Federal Land, hand crews with chainsaws will thin brush, remove small trees, and pile debris for later burning.

• OTFSC will also contract with a Registered Forest Professional (RPF) who will complete an environmental study to meet the mandated California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements.

• Landowners are now individually giving their consent to making this project a reality. As work begins, your questions and concerns are vital to the success of the project.