“We got lucky:” Bell Springs fuel reduction put to the test

Before and after fire prep work on Bell Springs Road

Press release from the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council:

A remote community in rural Mendocino County is grateful for a fuel reduction project, after a vehicle fire by a newly maintained roadside was quickly doused.

Late in the morning of July 13, an RV caught fire near a private driveway about two miles up Bell Springs Road in Laytonville. “When vehicles burn, especially something like an RV or a trailer…they put out very toxic smoke, and they burn very hot,” explained Bell Springs Fire Department Chief Will Emerson. “This thing was fully engulfed.”

Fortunately, CAL FIRE and volunteer firefighters from Laytonville and Leggett got to the scene and suppressed the flames. Thanks, in part, to recently completed fuel reduction work along the first five miles of Bell Springs Road it was relatively easy work.

Another area’s before and after fire prep work on Bell Springs Road.

Emerson described what the scene of the incident looked like, just a few months ago. “In this case, where the vehicle fire was, probably within about five feet of it, had been very thick brush and ladder fuels under a live oak tree and a fir tree,” potentially a recipe for a conflagration, he recalled. “There is no doubt if that material had still been there, it would have burst into flames from the radiant heat and taken off into the trees.” Embers were also flying across the road from the RV into what had been thick brush along a steep dropoff. Emerson believes that, “There’s a very good chance that if that brush had still been there, then the fire would have caught in there and then raced up the hill. There’s a number of houses up above that, so that could have been very bad.”

Travel on Bell Springs Road is precarious all year round. The narrow, tree-lined route rises about 1500 feet for the first three miles off of Highway 101 in the northern reaches of the county. It climbs the steep sides of a canyon, along the edges of vertical dropoffs before it flattens out along the ridge and starts to open up.

The Neighborhood Fire Safe Council, which is closely associated with the local fire department, has been concerned about the thick vegetation along that road for a while. In the spring of 2025, the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council got a CAL FIRE grant to thin the first five miles, up to fifty feet away from the road. Emerson was satisfied with the work by all parties, reporting that, “The crew that did it, Elk Ridge Tree Service, are all local people, so they really took pride in their work and did a great job. Of course, the Fire Safe Council was great in organizing it. To help make it happen, the neighborhood group needed to help secure permission from roadside landowners to reduce the fuels fifty feet from the road onto their property.

It’s not the first time there has been a vehicle fire on Bell Springs. Emerson recalled an instance years ago, when a flatbed truck with a heavy load and mechanical problems tried to climb the steep grade. It got out from under the trees before internal combustion became external, narrowly avoiding disaster. Luck played a role in that incident, as it always does when there’s a fire on the mountain that does not end in disaster.

Burned RV on Bell Springs Road.

This year’s RV fire struck when there was still some moisture in the ground, during an unusually cool summer, on a day when firefighters didn’t have a lot else going on. But preparation is even more important, as shown by this community that got organized, worked with its Fire Safe Council, and succeeded in removing a mass of brush that would have been next to this RV when it ignited.

Managing vegetation in areas at a high risk of fire is one way to reduce the role of luck if it does come to a fight. And Emerson knows there’s plenty more to do. “All this land is overgrown,” he reflected. “It needs to be thinned and managed. That’s the work ahead.”

There is a benefit for the Bell Springs Volunteer Fire Department on August 30, 2025 at Tan Oak Park in Leggett, from 4:00 pm until it’s over. There will be food, music, craft beer and cider, and a raffle. First prize, Emerson promised, is a cord of wood, cut by a firefighter.

If you’d like to learn how the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council can help your community apply for funding and organize fire resiliency projects, you can visit firesafemendocino.org.