Opinion by Grizzly Flats Resident
Local Resident [Name Withheld]
“Basically since the evacuation has been lifted calfire abandoned grizzly flats. Leaving us to fight the daily hot spots flare ups with shovels. 9/22 at 830am flare up on 10080 GFR was so hot and intense community members rushed there to try to contain it, it took 45 min for calfire to get up to grizzly.
On 9/22 at 7pm flare up on GFR and Blue mountain very close to unburned vegetation and homes community members rushed there with shovels rakes fire extinguishers and and gallons of drinking water to handle it since calfire was nowhere to be found.
On 9/23 at 9am flair up on GFR again calfire no where in grizzly and community members who decided to set in their own fire patrol rushed to the location of the flare up and took care of it.
On 9/25 mountain enterprises dropped a tree on a smoldering stump started a fire on string canyon and scoroni, calfire nowhere to be found. If it wasn’t for community members and PGE water truck that fire would’ve claimed the only home standing across from where the post office was.
On 9/26 hot spot flare up on Logan’s grade at 930am down in a steep hill again calfire was called and notifiers with the location. Community member risked their lives went down there with shovels gallons of drinking water and fire extinguishers and put it out.
While battling this flare up calfire engine drove by stopped for 10 seconds saw us still trying to put it out and didn’t bother to do anything, they simply drove off.
I got fed up with the bullshit I decided to call grizzly flats district supervisor George Turnboo, pioneer Fire, KCRA, ABC10, Sacramento bee and couple of other news outlets to let them know that grizzly flats has been abandoned by Calfire even though they’re still in charge of the Caldor incident. Couple of hours later pioneer fire protection volunteers showed up wanting to know here the hot spot on Logan’s grade was. I showed it to them and they wanted to know more about the recent flare ups. As I took them around to show them where those were, we came across another smoker with flames. Pioneer had to call for permission to take action since Grizzly is still under calfire jurisdiction. Permission was granted after 10 minutes or so and they took care of it.
The struggles of grizzly flats are far from over and calfire does not give a shit. Grizzly is caught in the middle of this evil political bullshit jurisdiction calfire game preventing pioneer fire protection from doing their jobs to protect what’s left in grizzly flats.
The blame is. It on the boots on the ground, it’s the shot callers that needs to be held accountable.”
Local Resident.
About Post Author
CalFire and the USDA are only concerned with their areas of jurisdiction. The State and Federal lands. It is up to us to take responsibility to protect our homes. They did the same thing up here in Tahoe.