09-23-2011_Tam Watershed Tour

On September 23, 2011 the Marin County Fire Department hosted a tour of the Mount Tam fire roads and watershed. This is an annual event intended to provide familiarization with the watershed terrain, fuels, fire history, and conditions to those who might be called upon to conduct operations in the area. Retired Deputy Chief Jim Selfridge provided the benefit his encyclopedic knowledge of the area.

My driver and guide for the day was Kevin Cook who spends most of his working days operating heavy equipment on these very same roads. You may note that we were not the lead vehicle and as such many of the accompanying photos were taken through the dust covered windshield of our utility vehicle.

After 6 hours of covering some rough terrain the bottom line is this. The watershed is covered with an extremely high load of problematic fuels including dense dead and down heavy fuel, high dead to live ratio chaparral, and non-native species like pine and fir. Prescribed burns were halted 30 years ago, and the fuel load just accumulates in very difficult terrain.