Gateway to the national forest
Upper Lake is about eight miles north of Lakeport, and it bills itself as the gateway to the Mendocino National Forest. In the 1800s it was the hub of the northern part of the county; its first store went up in 1866. Today it is a small town with ranch and rural parcels around it and forest land rising to the north.
Living at the forest edge
Property out here tends to be bigger and wilder than a town lot: oaks and pines along a drive, brush grown up around a barn, dead trees standing at the back of the acreage. That is work for more than a chainsaw. Our excavator clears brush and stumps and grades a road or a pad; the tracked chipper turns the cut material into chips on site; and the spider lift handles the trees close to buildings. See land clearing and log and debris removal.
When the Ranch Fire came close
On the evening of July 28, 2018, Upper Lake was evacuated as the Ranch Fire grew. It was part of the Mendocino Complex, and by itself it burned 410,203 acres, at the time the largest wildfire in modern California history. Living next to that much wildland, the most useful thing you can do before summer is defensible space: brush and grass cut back, trees limbed up, dead ones gone, and the slash chipped instead of left in piles.
Your trees, made into something
Robert is a CalFire Licensed Timber Operator, and he works selectively: one tree down without hurting the ones around it. If you are clearing land and want the wood, the good logs can go to R2’s sawmill and come back as lumber, a shed or furniture. See milling and custom builds. A barn or shed built from your own trees keeps a piece of the land you cleared.