Fire officials say they’ve faced red tape trying to cut fire risk at Mt. Diablo

In the San Ramon Valley, fire leaders are trying to protect homes from potential wildfire, but their efforts to do that were cut significantly short, at least for this fire season.

The San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District knows its area faces high fire risk, particularly on Mt. Diablo and in Mt. Diablo State Park, where the district is responsible for responding to fires on much of that territory.

In 2025, the district had been working on a plan to cut down vegetation that could present fire risks at the park, in an effort to protect local neighborhoods that could be impacted by fires there, including Danville’s Blackhawk community, which has around 3,000 homes.

SRVFPD was aiming to treat 300 acres of potential fire fuel at the park this year, but said they ultimately were only able to get to about 22 acres in the two weeks they were able to work. The district was using tools called masticators to grind up excess brush that could present a fire risk.

Incoming SRVFPD Chief Jonas Aguiar said that the district was hoping to start the work in June, but wound up not getting approval from the state to start the work until October. He said the district was notified around August that they would only have until November 1 to complete the work.

“There was a concern with the ground temperatures due to the Alameda Whip Snake, and its inability to move out of the way of the masticators,” Aguiar said.

SRVFPD also said that it was told by parks officials that more needed to be done to protect manzanita trees, as well as possible indigenous burial grounds.

District leadership expressed disappointment that they weren’t able to make more progress.

“We know this is something — on any given fire season — where we can have large loss of structures and potentially lives, there’s devastation that happens every year during California fire seasons,” said Aguiar.

The outgoing SRVFPD Fire Chief Paige Meyer, in his last week of the job, wrote a letter to California’s governor and State Parks director expressing frustration with the process, saying all the hurdles amounted to “the near-complete dismantling of a life-safety strategy.” Meyer also called on the state to immediately reassess its fire mitigation restrictions in “state-designated high-hazard areas.”

In a statement Thursday, a spokesperson for the California State Parks said it has not received Meyer’s letter and that news of it “came as a surprise” as it is “not reflective of our work and collaboration with the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District.”

“State Parks stands ready to work with the SRVPD to complete critical projects for the benefit of the public and will provide the SRVFPD with a formal response and identify potential areas of improvement within the state’s control,” the spokesperson said.

The State Parks department also said that some of the requirements referenced in the district’s letter are federal requirements, not state ones. The spokesperson added that those requirements were shared with the district “at the onset of discussing this project” and that the district did not submit its application to the State Parks for “roughly five months.”

“Despite this, we were able to process the permit in under four weeks,” the spokesperson continued.

The news of this shortened fire protection work isn’t sitting well with some homeowners who are already dealing with insurance hassles over their fire risk.

“We all know what just happened in Pacific Palisades. I don’t want to get caught in the same trap here in Blackhawk as what happened down there,” said Jason Skeoch, who lives in Blackhawk. Skeoch said he has been asked by his home insurer to take action to reduce fire risk on his property, and he feels the state parks should have to do the same.

Fire district leaders said the work they were able to accomplish at the park in 2025 will have an impact. According to their modeling technology, the brush they already cleared will slow the progress of a fire from reaching homes by about an hour.

Aguiar said the district is hoping to get another shot to complete the work this year. They are planning to apply for additional permits and approvals.