The San Luis Obispo Fire Safe Council is now hosting a year-round free chipping program to help residents create defensible space around their home.
Battalion Chief Community Risk Reduction David Van Son says that while chipping programs have existed, now it will be year-round.
"This isn't going to replace Atascadero's chipping program in March. It's just actually going to supplant it and add more to it," he explains.
Anyone in the county is eligible for the program. Once 10 households are signed up in a neighborhood, a chipping crew will then come to the area and clean up, free of charge.
Van Son says that as fire seasons get longer, defensible space has proved to be critical in Atascadero.
"We've had a couple of fires here in Atascadero this year. The Carlos fire and the Llano Fire, which proved that defensible space works. We didn't lose any structures in those, and the fires crept up right to the properties where they had defensible space," says Van Son.
He urges people to stay vigilant.
"We had a really cool July and that might have given some people some false hope, but that weather's really changed in the last couple of weeks to become hotter, drier, so residents need to be a lot more careful out there," he says.
You can sign up for the program here.
