Los Gatos Creek Watershed Collaboration

Santa Clara County FireSafe Council Several years ago, the Santa Clara County FireSafe Council partnered with the San Jose Water Company, Santa Clara County Parks, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District and smaller, private landowners, to form the Los Gatos Creek Watershed Collaboration.

CalFire has awarded this group two forest health grants, totaling more than $14 million, to enhance the forest’s resilience to wildfires in proximity to homes in the Los Gatos Creek watershed. The goal of these grant projects is to selectively thin dense tree stands and underlying brush to lessen the risk of wildfire, remove diseased trees to improve growing conditions, and expand existing shaded-fuel breaks.

The first grant provided funding to treat 938 acres, work that concluded in March. The second grant is being used to treat an additional 840 acres, with work scheduled to be completed in 2027. West Branch Project. Work is continuing off Montevina Road for the west branch of the forest health grant collaboration. Hard- fought ground on the El Sereno Trail, with a 100-year history of no fire, has made the work slow and tedious, but the end result is turning out nicely. We face a similar situation on the Serenity Trail off the El Sereno Trail in Los Gatos, which has a very heavy fuel load.

We are currently treating an average of 20 to 25 acres per month. South Branch Project. We began work on the south branch of the collaboration area last month. We started at San Jose Water property off Sears Road and Wrights Station Road. This work is in steep terrain and is being completed with a combination of BurnBot machines and manual labor by subcontracted tree service companies.

For more information, visit sccfiresafe.org/ projects/lgwatershedhealth.