Neighborhood Chipper Pilot Program

What is the Neighborhood Chipper Program?

The Neighborhood Chipper Pilot Program is a hazardous fuels reduction service (available to folks living in the high fire areas of Yolo County) that helps landowners manage vegetation after creating defensible space around their homes. Residents are responsible for cutting down vegetation, in accordance with CALFIRE Defensible Space Best Practices and stacking their debris piles. Once the piles are ready for chipping, residents submit a request through the form (below) and the YCFSC Chipper Crew will visit to chip the piles back onto the property.

Fire safety starts in the home. This is particularly true for the wildland-urban interface (WUI), the area where urban- suburban development meets undeveloped, natural wildlands. By creating defensible space around your home (at least 100 feet out from your home), you are increasing a structure’s resistance to wildfire. Although creating defensible space cannot guarantee a structure’s survival during a wildfire, it can give firefighters more time to defend a home and saves firefighter’s lives.

Who can participate?

This free program is offered to folks living in the high fire areas of Yolo County which includes Capay Valley, Western Esparto, West Winters, and select areas of Dunnigan and Zamora. To see if your home qualifies for chipping, visit the Fire Hazard Severity Zones tab on the Yolo County Community Base Map, linked below or contact Alli Permann, RCD Outreach Coordinator, at permann@yolorcd.org or call 530-661-1688 x20.

Yolo County Fire Hazard Severity Zones

The Do’s and Don’ts of Chipping

Request a Visit from the Chipper Below:

Guidelines for Piles: 

1. Chipping Crews will visit a property for up to 3 hours in one visit.
2. Maximum pile size is 50 feet long, 10 feet wide and 5 feet high.
3. The chipper can handle material up to 6 inches in diameter and up to 10 feet in length.
4. Piles must be easily accessible from a private road, driveway, or lane and must be 10 feet of the access road.
5. Face the cut ends of the cut materials all in the same direction and point the cut ends towards the road.
6. Piles must be limited to brush and tree limbs from the property itself. Stringy vine type brush, such as poison oak, construction materials, leaves, grass clippings, etc. may foul or damage the chipper.
7. Materials will be chipped back onto property- homeowners are responsible to thinly spread chips in accordance with CALFIRE’s Defensible Space Zones.
8. This free chipping service is for residential use only and not for a commercial enterprise. This program is only intended for those attempting to perform hazardous fuels reduction/100 feet defensible space.