FAIRFIELD -- Don Lynne had already cleared away about 50 pine trees when he and his wife moved into their new Green Valley home in 2013.
He was concerned about the fire hazard the pines created so close to the residence.
"I knew they burn pretty fast, so I took them down," Lynne said.
But there was still a density of trees and foliage, and the 2017 Atlas Fire, which came across the Napa ridge and claimed several Highlands homes, showed just what kind of fire risk the Green Valley wildlands represented.
Two years later, on Oct. 6, 2019, about 100 Green Valley residents met to discuss the formation of a fire safe council.
"There were a lot of projects we said we wanted to do," said Rochelle Sherlock, a Cordelia resident, who has been one of the driving forces behind the Fire Safe Council and the progress made in the past five years.
On that wish list of projects, including becoming a Firewise USA site - which was accomplished in 2020 - was an ambitious target of creating a fire break around the valley.
Sherlock and other organizers, today, took several dozen Solano County officials and other residents on a tour to see the work that started with that organizational meeting five years ago.
Using a $950,000 state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection grant, the group purchased an excavator and other equipment and hired some crews to begin creating what is known as a shaded fire break.
Smaller and non-native trees are removed, but larger oaks and other trees remain to keep the essence of the woodland environment in place.
"We removed the ground and ladder fuels," said Sherlock, describing the vegetation that works its way up tree trunks, and become "ladders" for fire to climb and reach the treetops.
"But we also had to open up the space between the trees (in the forest canopy)," she added.
The state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has been a core partner, along with the Cordelia Fire Protection District and Frank and Curt Lindemann at the Green Valley Cattle Company.
Sherlock noted Vallejo, a major property owner in Green Valley, does not have the financial resources needed for work in its land, but has been very cooperative with the project.
"And we hired a professional forester. The forester's job was to go do the assessment and to write the prescription," Sherlock said.
That "prescription" included the areas of work, the number of trees that could be removed in any of those areas, and trees with diameters of 8 inches or more - in most cases - were left alone.
The forester then trained the work crews on those specifications and standards - groups like Pearls Farm Labor, which was the primary contractor, as well as Healthy Vallejo, Frye Native Habitat Restitution, state prison crews, and, of course, the heavy equipment operators and fuels reduction crews from Cal Fire.
Along the way, interested bystanders like rattlesnakes, black bears and even a mountain lion or two, joined the usual collective of birds, deer and other critters to watch the activity.
Sherlock beams as she looks from one ridge, across the valley slopes where streams flow below, knowing just a year or so earlier, that view was not possible.
"I think it is important for people to understand how steep and rugged it is," Sherlock said. "There are places (the crews) worked that the slope (had an) 80% drop-off."
That translates into areas where fire spreads easily enough, but makes it nearly impossible to get fire crews on the ground.
The break encircles the west side of the valley, from Mason Street up to the Vallejo water treatment plant. It totals 80.1 acres. The majority of the work was completed in 2023.
A second Cal Fire grant, this one $650,000, will pay for the second phase of the project, which will basically double the acreage treated - as Sherlock describes the labor-intensive work - around the east side of the valley. The heavy work will begin come winter, when it's safest to bring in the chainsaws, chippers and other equipment.
"Basically, we have created a break on the west side of the valley, all behind those (Highlands) residences. Now we have to go up a little higher and link it over to the east side," Sherlock said. "But the west side was the top priority."
She expects that work on the second phase to be completed in the early summer - bringing the total area to 150 to 160 acres - at which time the focus will turn to developing a maintenance plan and going out to seek grant money for that ongoing work.
Actually, the grant search will actually begin in the coming weeks.
Lynne said he knew nothing of the shaded fire break work until Sherlock contacted him.
"I thought it was a pretty good idea. There was a lot of undergrowth and you couldn't even see through it," Lynne said.
Lynne said it was worth every bit of the minor inconvenience of having crews, their vehicles and other equipment on his property.
"They've done a beautiful job," he said.
Anita O'Brien, whose property is on McCreedy Road, was so inspired by what the fire safe council was doing, that she and her husband shifted about $30,000 that was going to go toward some home renovations to clearing away about half of the 8 acres of woodlands on the property.
She was particularly awed by the hard work of the young adults who were part of Healthy Vallejo.
"I'm so happy, and I'm so happy we did it," O'Brien said.
However, like many others, she strongly believes that the Green Valley residents would have never been in that situation if the state had a better forestry policy.
Dave Carpenter, the retired chief of the Cordelia Fire Protection District and another key member of the fire safe council, said the best thing Green Valley residents can do for themselves is to harden their homes,
That consists of vegetation management and using home materials that resist flames and, particularly, embers.
He said even with the shaded fire break, there is no guarantee embers will not float onto someone's property, or even the fire itself reaching the area.
"It's the one thing they can do to protect their homes and their neighbors," Carpenter said.
But Sherlock said when the fire council was first being formed, there was not a lot of interest among the residents to help themselves. Evaluations for defensible space and other fire-protective measures had 40% failure rates.
A second round of evaluations, after more education, green waste cleanup projects and other steps, and Sherlock said the failure rate was closer to 15%.
What the break primarily does is give firefighters a physical and tactical advantage that was not there in the past.
Carpenter said that during the Atlas Fire, Cal Fire sent air resources to other fires because the tree canopy was so thick that it would have been ineffective to drop fire retardant on the Green Valley slopes.
Sherlock said that by thinning the canopy, the retardent can now reach the ground.
Roads are wider and easier to navigate, and in fact, a second way out was created for crews if by chance they were in an area where the wind shifted or the fire was advancing at a faster rate than expected.
The break is not, however, designed to stop the fire like a fully cleared or dozed area. Instead, it is designed to slow the spread, which gives firefighters the time needed to bring in resources to beat the flames back.
Additionally, the break is marked on digital mapping so agencies, and their incident commanders, know exactly where the break runs in relation to the fire.
"That is a huge advantage and plans can be developed around that," Carpenter said.
"And not only will that be on their maps," Carpenter added, "but the pilots can see it from the air."
Sherlock said some piles of wood from the first phase still need to be cleared out, and there is still work being done around PG&E trails. And, of course, all the work will be wasted if a maintenance plan is not developed.
O'Brien said it has only been six months since she completed the work on her property, and vegetation is already growing back. In other areas, dead oaks have fallen, something that has been happening for some time and frequency, Sherlock said, and the foresters have not yet figured out why.
The important part is the fallen trees become fire fuel, so they need to be removed.
"There has to be a maintenance plan because it will regrow," Sherlock said. "But we have to go for some more grant money."
Still, today's tour, she noted, is a nice five-year anniversary celebration.