Cachagua Community Fire Meeting Notes....

July 9, 2008, about 8:30 pm...

Just back from the Cachagua Community Fire Information Meeting, held at the Cachagua Community Park. I've audiotaped the meeting and it should be available on from the KUSP website by tomorrow.

The meeting was led by Rod McMahon, Public Information Officer for Cachagua Fire, who turned the meeting over to U.S. Forest Service Chief Steve Davis, of the Los Padres National Forest.

Steve Davis is clearly an excellent resource and spoke well and knowledgeably about the fire, strategy and conditions. Steve is the Los Padres National Forest wildlands fuels expert... he's got a pretty good idea about how and where the place will burn, if and when fire comes.

In fact a reporter - Mark Anderson, writing in the Monterey County Weekly, for Sept 28 to Oct 4, 2006 - spoke with Steve, Chief Frank Penny of the Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade and Cindy Nagai, CDF’s Carmel Highlands fire marshal. The title of the article was a portentious one: Big Sur Will Burn, A DRY, HOT SUMMER FOLLOWING A LONG, WET WINTER—AND YEARS OF SUDDEN OAK DEATH—ARE BOUND TO FUEL AN INFERNO. THE ONLY QUESTION IS: WHEN WILL IT HAPPEN?

A rhetorical question no longer!

It was brought up at the meeting that Tassajara Zen Mountain Center had been voluntarily evacuated after wrapping the structures in fire retardant foil. Rod thought that the evacuation was a bit of a head-scratcher from his point of view, since he believes that Tassajara is quite defensible.

More on the evacuation of Tassajara at Sitting with Fire (also, see above, at the end of "A Roadblock Disdained...").

By the way, if you need information on the gel retardant displayed by the local Thermo-Gel representative, Sharon Torrence, who attended the meeting, product in hand, her contact numbers are: (209) 223-3829 or mobile (209) 419-0429.