DSAFIE
Defensible Space Assistance For Income-Eligible
Introduction
Learn more about Mendocino County Fire Safe Council’s Defensible Space Assistance For the Income-Eligible (DSAFIE)!
This program helps low-income seniors and persons with physical disabilities comply with defensible space regulations designed to protect lives and property in wildfire-prone areas. If you are physically and financially unable to maintain the state-mandated 100 feet of defensible space around your home, this FREE program can help.
DSAFIE is currently funded by the County of Mendocino using an allocation of PG&E Disaster Relief Settlement Funds.
Before and After DSAFIE work
The Woods
“The Woods” is a residentially-owned senior community of 109 homes located on 37 wooded acres adjacent to Van Damme State Park in CAL FIRE's High and Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. We have served more than 45 homes at The Woods so far, resulting in a significant reduction of wildfire risk for the entire community.
All of our clients there have told us that they are happy with the work, and that it made them feel safer.
The Mendocino County Fire Safe Council has provided unprecedented support to our community. While we have made some progress towards fire safety, many of our residents have limited ability, physically or financially, to do the physical labor necessary in their homes' surrounding landscape. While we have had homeowners, staff, and handy-persons do an incredible amount of work to make our community more fire-safe over the last couple of years, your MCFSC work teams have done a decade's worth of improvements within weeks!
DSAFIE work areas in The Woods senior community
Slide the arrow button back and forth to see how fuel continuity was broken up without removing the trees and shrubs.
Creating Defensible Space
Partnerships
MCFSC partners with several local fire agencies to provide DSAFIE services. These partnerships
- provide supplemental income for local fire agencies,
- increase wildfire safety in their districts,
- expand the reach of our DSAFIE program to assist even more people,
- reduce the significant costs of transporting our own crew, vehicles, and equipment to remote parts of the county, and
- serve to better connect residents with their own local first responders.
We have been working with the Whale Gulch Volunteer Fire Company since 2022. Whale Gulch has weathered many storms that caused downed trees to block roads and driveways while increasing ground-fuel loads.
Defensible space clearing around the deck and hillside.
The Leggett Valley Fire Protection District has had huge success in helping many seniors and low-income families protect their homes.
The Anderson Valley Fire Department also provides DSAFIE service.
If you are a senior or physically disabled resident of one of these fire districts, and want to make your home more wildfire-prepared, you may qualify for free assistance.
Anderson Valley residents may start at https://www.andersonvalleyfire.org/dsafie
Elsewhere in Mendocino County, visit https://firesafemendocino.org/dsafie/
These Before-and-After photos are from work done in our partner districts.
Reveal of the home after overgrown fuels were removed
Image by the National Fire Protection Association—click to see zones 0–1–2
Success
Since 2020, when MCFSC started the DSAFIE program, we have helped protect 439 homes throughout Mendocino County—and counting!
The map below shows the locations of our DSAFIE jobs in Fiscal Year 2023–24. (Larger dots indicate a greater number of homes served, with the largest dots meaning 20 or more homes in those locations.)
DSAFIE service locations in Fiscal Year 2023–24
What's Next?
MCFSC will receive funding for this program from the County of Mendocino until 2026. Due to the extremely high demand for these services, we have pursued additional DSAFIE funding, and were awarded a CAL FIRE Wildfire Prevention Grant that will allow us to expand the reach of DSAFIE in the next few years. We continue to seek secure ongoing funding for this essential service.
Hear from a Willits resident about our DSAFIE program.
This program is funded by Mendocino County.
