Sonoma County removing nearly 5,000 dying and dead trees along 90 miles of roads hit by 2017 wildfires

Nearly 5,000 wildfire-scorched trees are scheduled for removal along county roads north of Santa Rosa and in Sonoma Valley in a $4 million program that will run through early next year.

Work by a Santa Rosa firm under contract with Sonoma County’s Transportation and Public Works Department started Thursday and continued Friday on Mark West Springs Road, snarling traffic and causing half-hour delays, but one Mark West area resident said it was necessary.

“I think it has to be done,” said Lynda Bayless, who recently moved into her rebuilt home west of the road in the area ravaged by the Tubbs fire in October 2017.

There are plenty of fire-damaged trees with limbs hanging over the road between Wikiup Bridge Way and Riebli Road, including one tall, leaning pine tree, she said.

“I thought if that thing came down it would be a big crash and cover the whole road,” Bayless said.

With the tree crews periodically closing the road, she said it took 35 minutes to reach Old Redwood Highway, with a 3-mile backup in each direction, Friday morning.

Another resident said it took 80 minutes to drive from around Safari West to Santa Rosa on Thursday morning, making people late to work or dropping off their children at school. No notices of the work were posted in advance along Mark West Springs Road, he said.

Johannes Hoevertsz, county transportation and public works director, said the work is causing up to 30-minute delays when crews have to close both lanes to topple tall trees.

The county’s contract with Atlas Tree Surgery requires posting illuminated changeable message signs along roads five days before closure, and the contractor did so on Mark West Springs Road, he said.

Hoevertsz said he hopes the public will be patient while the work goes on.

“I know it’s going to be inconvenient but in the long term it’s going to be safer for everyone,” he said.

The work on Mark West Springs Road is part of a project to remove about 4,815 trees and prune limbs on about 73 trees on rights of way along 90 miles of roads burned by the wildfires, a county report said.

In the fires’ wake, the county hired an arborist to assess the damaged trees and pinpoint those, dying or dead, that posed a risk to public safety in various burn zones, Hoevertsz said.

Atlas was the low bidder on both phases of the project, coming in far below an engineer’s estimate, the report said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will cover 90% of the project’s $3.97 million cost, and the California Office of Emergency Services will pay 75% of the remainder, leaving the county to pay the rest, Hoevertsz said.

Without that support, the tree removal “would be very difficult to do,” he said. The work must be done by March to qualify for the funding and “it seems like we’re on schedule, Hoevertsz said.

The program calls for tree removal and trimming along some streets in the Larkfield-Wikiup area, along Mark West Springs Road from Old Redwood Highway and extending on Porter Creek Road, Petrified Forest Road and Franz Valley School Road to the Napa County line; along Riebli Road, Wilshire Drive and Wallace Road to the Santa Rosa city limits; and along Calistoga Road from the city limits to Petrified Forest Road.

In Sonoma Valley, work will occur east of Highway 12 on Adobe Canyon Road, Nuns Canyon and Nelligan roads, on Trinity and Cavedale roads to the Napa County line and west of Highway 12 on parts of Dunbar, Henno and Lawndale roads.

East of Sonoma, work will touch the upper reaches of Lovall Valley and Wood Valley roads.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.