The Northern Sonoma County Fire District plans to conduct a prescribed burn on Dec. 3 starting at 9:30 a.m. in the footprint of the 1972 Bradford Mountain Fire on a 12-acre private property.
The fire district is working on the prescribed burn in cooperation with the Cloverdale Fire Protection District, CalFire, the Northern Sonoma County Air Pollution Control District, the Audubon Canyon Ranch Fire Forward program and private property owners.
According to a Northern Sonoma County Fire District press release, the burn will start around 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning and will be located on the eastern side of Bradford Mountain near the 600 block of West Dry Creek Road.
“This will be the final burn unit as part of a total 32-acre treatment located in a wildland urban interface area. Smoke may be visible throughout Northern Sonoma County due to the elevation and location,” the press release states.
The vegetation to be burned is primarily a forested area that has not experienced a major wildfire since the 1972 fire, which burned 1,760 acres and four homes.
At the time it was the largest fire in Sonoma County history between the 1965 Fire Siege and the 1978 Creighton Ridge fires.
The goal of a prescribed burn is to reduce the amount of surface vegetation in order to reduce the intensity of future wildfires and to return wildfire to the local ecosystem as a natural disturbance regime.
Prescribed burns are only conducted within favorable weather and vegetation parameters and when no strong winds are forecasted.
“The planning process considers all variables and reduces the risk of an “escape” and impacts to air quality,” according to the press release.
Firefighters will remain onsite to monitor the burn until nightfall with contingency plans to remain onsite throughout the night as needed.
