2014 Archived News Items
December 2014
Dec 29, 2014: Spare The Air alert today in Santa Clara County. See http://www.sparetheair.org/ for more information.
Dec 28, 2014: Water tender funding update: over 30% of matching grant achieved! Less than $86,000 to raise and we're done! Please consider donating at http://LoveMeTender.info/
Dec 28, 2014: Spare The Air alert today in Santa Clara County. See http://www.sparetheair.org/ for more information.
Dec 16, 2014: The water tender fundraising effort has raised over 20% of the matching grant. Less than $100K left to raise! Please help by visiting http://LoveMeTender.info/ to donate!
Dec 14, 2014: Another large storm coming our way Sunday night (12/14/14) and through 12/17/14. Not as bad as the previous event, but still several inches of rain are possible. See the Storm Resources page for useful links.
Dec 12, 21014: New MNN article available here: Be Informed and Get Trained. This will appear in the January 2015 MNN.
Dec 12, 2014: A few images from the storm have been added to the Photos & Incident Descriptions page. The hazard map from the storm is also available.
Dec 11, 2014: New Storm Resources page added.
Dec 10, 2014: Added a link to the Mountain Resident Sticker Program to the Links Page. These stickers may help you get past road blocks on 17 when only locals are allowed through.
Dec 8, 2014: A strong storm is expected to arrive in the Santa Cruz Mountains on the evening of Wednesday, Dec 10. Heavy rains (5 to 8 inches) and high winds - with gusts up to 70 miles per hour - are expected through Thursday and into Friday. Recent rains have saturated the ground, and trees are still drought stressed, so expect lots of downed trees and power lines on Wednesday and Thursday. Mudslides are also possible in areas of steep terrain. More information available from NOAA including the Special Weather Statement.
Dec 8, 2014: Today the San Mateo / Santa Cruz (CZU) Cal Fire unit switches over to Amador plan staffing levels, in Santa Cruz County. With this change the cost of firefighting and medical response in Unincorporated Santa Cruz County (the CSA 48 area) moves from the state (via Cal Fire) to Santa Cruz County Fire. Until the fire seasons starts again, Cal Fire engines are staffed with just two firefighters instead of three and Soquel Station is unstaffed.
Dec 6&7 2014: Holiday Craft Faire at the Community Center. The water tender coalition will have a space to talk about the water tender project and accept donations. Various vendors are also contributing a portion of their proceeds to the water tender. More info at: http://ctenglish.com/holiday
Update: Many thanks to everyone who came to our booth. We raised over $7000 in donations at the faire, and with the matching grant we added well over $14,000 to the total raised for the new water tender. Thank you!
Dec 5, 2104: Incident Statistics Page updated to have data from November.
Dec 3, 2014: Many new links added about air pollution control districts.
Dec 2, 2013: End of fire season press release from Cal Fire. Backyard burn season now open in Santa Cruz County.
November 2014
Nov 25-28, 2014: Spare The Air alert in San Lorenzo valley - sign up for email notification of spare the air alerts at: http://mbuapcd.org/programs-resources/planning/sanlorenzovalley/ (see the button in the middle of the page).
Nov 25, 2014: Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District's backyard burn permit website is up and running for the 2014/15 season. If you're in Santa Cruz County and want to burn vegetation once the season opens, you can now start the permit process online.
Nov 24, 2014: $125K matching grant announced to assist with the purchase of the water tender. See LoveMeTender.info for all the details.
Nov 23, 2014: Structure fire on Summit Road. Picture and short video now on Photos & Incident Descriptions page.
Nov 20, 2014: The Santa Cruz County Backyard Burn Rules page has been completely revised based on additional research and conversations with Cal Fire and MBUAPCD employees.
Nov 20, 2014: Two Cal Fire press releases relating to the burn ban being lifted:
Nov 16, 2014: A Santa Cruz Sentinel article mistakenly gave the impression that because the Santa Cruz County Burn Ban was lifted on Nov 17, backyard burn season has started as well. That is not true. Burn season won't start until at least Dec 1. See the Santa Cruz County Backyard Burn Rules for the best information we have about burn season at this time.
Nov 15, 2014: Small brush fire in Lompico near Zayante. See Photos & Incident Descriptions for details.
Nov 10, 2014: New MNN article available here: Family Disaster Plan. This will appear in the December MNN, but you can see it here first.