The Mission Canyon Association and Santa Barbara County Fire are partnering again to sponsor brush chipping on designated streets to prepare our neighborhoods for high-fire season.
Santa Barbara County Fire has identified the areas (shown on the attached map) that are the designated streets that brush piles will be chipped. This includes Mission Canyon Road (900 block and up), Tunnel, Las Canoas (the part in the county), Montrose, and Cheltenham roads. Chipping is scheduled to start on Tuesday, June 1 (barring fire events), and all brush to chip must be placed on the curb by Monday, May 31. If you have any specific questions please contact Captain Jason Sweet (info below).
The chipping crew will only make one pass and anything left curbside after the crew comes through will not be chipped. There are NO designated drop off areas other than the identified streets. If you would like to participate and have an address on one of the designated streets but your home is set back from the main road, please work with your neighbors who live along the main road to find a safe and acceptable area to leave your brush.
The following chipping instructions from Santa Barbara County Fire must be followed:
- Stack all cut vegetation by the first day of scheduled chipping. Chippers will only make one pass per area. Material stacked after the start date will not be chipped. It will be the homeowner’s responsibility to remove.
- Cut material should not be placed along the roadway until 1 week prior to chipping.
- Lay cut vegetation in a pile along the street area (in a turnout or shoulder, for instance) and outside of the drivable roadway.
- Set brush 3 to 5 feet from fences, power poles, landscaping, trees, structures, etc. so crews can quickly distinguish what is to be chipped — and what is not.
- Give 5 feet of vertical clearance from tree limbs overhead.
- The cut end of all vegetation must face the street so the chipping crew can grab it.
- Branches and limbs should be no greater than 6 inches in diameter.
- Piles must be stacked no more than 4 feet in height. Long piles are OK as long as they are not over 4 feet in height.
- Brush should be left in long lengths (4 to 7 feet). Cut vegetation is much easier to chip when it is longer.
- Cut vegetation should not be tied into bundles.
- Old dead vegetation that has been lying around for years cannot be chipped (this type of vegetation damages chipper blades).
- Piles or materials such as root balls that have rocks, dirt, or other debris cannot be chipped.
- Piles pushed or moved by mechanical equipment, i.e. tractor, will not be chipped.
- Material in plastic bags will not be picked up or chipped.
- Plants that cannot be chipped are: pine needles, leaf litter, agave and succulents, palm fronds, exotic pests such as castor bean, arundo, thistle, pampas grass, Scotch/French/Spanish broom, bamboo, Cape/German ivy, bird of paradise.
The goal of this program is to remove vegetation from Mission Canyon so any brush/vegetation from outside the area will not be accepted nor allowed to be dumped.
If you have questions or have a special request please contact Capt. Jason Sweet, Fire Prevention, Santa Barbara County Fire: 805-896-6350 or Jason.Sweet@sbcfire.com. Thank you for keeping our canyon more fire safe.
— Ray Smith, Chair, MCA Fire Committee