California’s last working nuclear power plant sits cradled in a landscape that would worry any firefighter when the wind picks up. The Pacific Ocean and its perpetual fog lick the western edge of the coastal bluffs holding the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. But the Irish Hills rise steeply to its east — their slopes rugged, dark with scrub and oak. Difficult to access, and full of fuel.“Any fire within the Diablo power plant area could be catastrophic,” said Dave Erickson, a division chief and forester with the Cal Fire San Luis Obispo unit. The property, he said, is in a very high fire severity zone. “So we just take precautions.”It’s one of the many places where California is now stepping into federal gaps created by Congress’ long-term underinvestment in fuels management on federal lands, the Trump administration’s cuts, and firefighters stretched thin by blazes raging across the West.
A local organization with state funding, the San Luis Obispo County Community Fire Safe Council, started carving a fuel break into the surrounding ridgelines. And Erickson put his crews to work closing the gaps, to create a critical toehold for firefighters to get ahead of flames. In the past, the patchwork of landowners around the power plant — which includes the U.S. Bureau of Land Management — could have derailed Erickson’s plans.
