OROVILLE — After one of the most active fire seasons in years, the Butte County Board of Supervisors voted to consolidate recent wildfires into a single emergency resolution.
Butte County Chief Administrative Officer Andy Pickett brought the item to the board during Tuesday’s meeting which will ratify the emergency declarations for both the Park and Thompson fires while also covering the Grubbs, Railbridge and Apache fires.
Pickett said the effort will aid those affected by the fires within the county.
Scorched vehicles sit alongside a roadway on July 26, 2024 in Butte County, California. (Jake Hutchison/Enterprise-Record)
“This new proclamation aggregates all of these five fires into a single incident that we are calling the Summer 2024 Butte County fires,” Pickett said. “And if this were declared by the state, they would allow all fire survivors from all of the different fires the same benefits and programs as the two current declarations provide.”
While the board unanimously backed Pickett’s proposal, with Supervisor Tod Kimmelshue absent, it was noted by Supervisor Doug Teeter that the California Office of Emergency Services could still deny the request by the county.
“I appreciate (Pickett’s) creativity and we don’t know if Cal OES is going to accept this but it’s worth a try,” Teeter said.
The recent fires resulted in the loss of multiple homes thorughout the county including communities in Oroville and Cohasset with the current total count being 428 structures.
Two other fire-related items were passed during Thursday’s meeting with the first ratifying the local health emergency and the second being an urgency ordinance for temporary housing.
Firefighting crews work on the edge of the Thompson Fire on Wednesday, July 3, 2024 near Oroville, California. (Dan Reidel/Enterprise-Record)
Butte County Public Health Director Danette York presented the local health emergency item to the board which also added the three smaller fires — Grubbs, Appache and Railbridge — to the current declaration.
The temporary housing ordinance pertains to lots affected by fire and allows residents to live in temporary housing on their property by relaxing certain local codes. Development Services Director Paula Daneluk said the ordinances addresses both temporary and transitory housing.
“It is essential that these ordinance changes be adopted in order to provide for the immediate housing needs of the folks who lost their homes in the fires over the summer,” Daneluk said.
Other business
Other items considered by the board included the following:
• Behavioral Health Director Scott Kennelly proved a quarterly update to the board on Senate Bill 43 as well as his department’s progress on implementing new changes.
• The board discussed and ultimately backed a letter of opposition to a restoration project that would allegedly remove agriculture land as well as minimize drainage into Mud Creek.
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