Palomar Mountain News

As many of you know, SDG&E owns easements under their power lines. For years Davey Tree did the tree work for them and did a beautiful job. Now they are going to be using Rancho Tree Service. We appreciate SDG&E keeping the area safe from fires. However, the most recent Davey crews really butchered a lot of Palomar leaving a very costly project for property owners. Many trees were cut to about 20 foot tall stumps with a token branch or a few left:

Many of us watched those branches, now of course, the entire tree die very quickly. When I first saw this “new way of grooming trees”, I stopped, talked to crews and went up the ladder for some properties to ‘finish the job’. Damage had already been done and it is very hard to get it corrected. When you cut the top of these once beautiful trees, they die and the work was not done to Cleveland National Forest Safety Standards nor compliant with Cal Fire requirements for keeping your property Fire Safe.

1. Since we are within Cleveland National Forest, their guidelines require that no stump be left taller that 8 inches on the tall side. These stumps and many more are 20 to 30 feet tall.
2. CAL FIRE now has annual inspections and one of the requirements states: “If you have dead or dying trees on your property, the entire tree needs to be removed to reduce wildfire risk.”
3. In addition, CAR, California Association of Real Estate has guidelines now through a state law, requiring a seller provide a CAL FIRE clearance or the Buyer needs to take the responsibility and have the work done within 30 days.

So much of the expensive work now required by CAL FIRE could be avoided for SDG&E to come back, remove the standing dead trees, cut the stumps to Forest Safety Standards and finish their job correctly. For a property owner to take this on, it is about $1800.00 per day.

Many of you are now getting tags on your front doors that new work is to be done by Rancho. Many of us believe that it could me much simpler for them to do the job according to the guidelines, the first time.

The goal for some folks is getting the work finished on their own property and of course making sure the new work is done within the guidelines.

Bonnie Phelps, Realtor and always glad to get your questions answered

760-533-1742