King City council votes to adopt a riverbed wildfire prevention plan
KING CITY, Calif. (KION-TV) -- The King City council met Tuesday and unanimously approved to adopt a riverbed wildfire prevention plan as-is.
"King City is at risk from potentially catastrophic wildfire as designated by CAL FIRE’s 2019 Communities at Risk List," according to the city. "For most of the Project Area, the fertility of the soils, availability of shallow groundwater, frequency of major flood disturbances, abundance of noxious weeds, and absentee landownership all work together to create vegetation conditions which are extremely difficult or impractical to manage."
The plan was proposed by the Planning Commission and recommended that City Council review the attached 400-page-plus document accompanying the agenda item to help analyze and reduce wildfire hazards along the Salinas River and San Lorenzo Creek.
"In the past five years, there have been four fires ignited and spread through or near the Project Area," wrote the document. "There is a recent history of people living within the Riverbed area. Multiple individuals and some families had constructed shelters, notably under the 101 overpass and south of the restaurants near the King City/Broadway southbound off ramp, plus some along the river itself."
These areas were the Circle Fire from 2020 (the cause was from a person playing with fire), the Jolon Fire from 2021 (the cause was from equipment use), the King Fire from 2022 (the cause was from an arson that resulted in a death) and the Broadway Fire from 2024 (the cause was from an encampment's cooking fire), according to the city.
A number of agencies along with further recommendations and education were brought up in consideration of the new plan. The 405-page city document can be accessed here.
