California’s 2020 Wildfire Debris Management Program

About the project

The Tidal Basin team was recently tasked by CalRecycle with providing professional structural debris and public right-of-way hazard tree removal assessment, tracking, management, and financial support. This project encompassed the structural debris and hazard tree removal of *five counties, inclusive of the Inland Branch 2020 wildfires. This area covered counties of Sonoma, Solano, Napa, Yolo, and Mendocino, with a small portion of Lake County.

*Tribal Entities

Key takeaways

• Prime Contractor: Tidal Basin
• Project Dates: November 2020 – May 2022

Challenge

Challenges we overcame during this mission included coordinating the operation during
a global pandemic and dangerous terrain. Emphasizing our ability to perform at the onset of the Global COVID-19 Pandemic, Tidal Basin maintained an aggressive approach
for compliance despite constantly changing CDC and WHO guidance, which resulted in successfully completing the project with no significant disruption to field activities.

Our Team surpassed another challenging experience, which was presented due to the arduous terrain and water crossings that
make up parts of the landscape within the Inland Branch. As a result of this landscape, our successful resolution was the decision to use a helicopter in some areas for hazardous tree identification and removal. This required extensive coordination for development of a helicopter safety plan, hazardous tree removal process, and an intense employee training course for the removal of more than 3,000 trees from such areas.

Solution

Tidal Basin’s Team was responsible for the health and safety of its workforce and compliance with CalOSHA and OSHA requirements. Our Team successfully performed monitoring and oversight services connected to the removal of hazardous trees including the supervision of arborists and the provision of crew leaders trained to identify eligible trees for removal under the program’s requirements and specifications. Our management and oversight included the monitoring and recording of
all data associated to the identification, site assessment, removal, and disposal of all eligible debris and hazardous trees by Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN).