1. Tree Care 101

by Jeff Rebischung, owner of Fine Tree Care

A well cared for tree that remains healthy increases in value with age. Mature trees beautify our yards and communities, purify the air, provide shading in the summer (which can help with the cooling bills), and shelter our homes from winter winds. They can even increase property values. A preventative care program can ensure the value of your trees will continue to grow over time because preventing a problem is less costly and time consuming than providing a cure years after a problem has developed. A maintenance program including regular inspections and the necessary follow-up care of mulching, fertilizing, pruning, end stage care, and eventual removal of trees, can identify problems and correct them before they become more damaging, fatal to the tree, cause property damage, or worse.

2. People Power STOPS Forestville Timber Harvest October, 2012

By David Herr Jeff Rebischung, Licensed Timber Operator and owner of Fine Tree Care

* This article was inspired by Jeff Rebischung's article Tree Removal Laws for Your Property

In talking with Kimberly Sone, the CalFire Division Chief (at the time) who was responsible for inspecting timber harvest plans (and stopping them when violations occur), she told me that Fine Tree Care is regarded as an authority on this subject. Jeff Rebischung wrote a very detailed article (SEE Tree Removal Laws for Your Property), filled with laws and legal language, which I translated for this article. I asked Jeff about the laws on small timber harvests, since he is a Licensed Timber Operator.

3. Tree Removal Laws for Your Property - Sonoma County & California Laws, November 30, 2012

By Vesta Copestakes, Co-written with Jeff Rebischung of Fine Tree Care*

If you are trimming trees, that’s one thing, but if you are removing them…Forest Practice Laws come into play. You may think that Timber Harvest Plans only apply to people taking out lots of trees on acres of land, but that’s not the case. Homeowners removing trees to eliminate fire hazards, or because trees are too close to the house, also have to comply with these laws.

4. Old Growth Forest Mimicry and Pre-Fire Vegetation Management Planning, CTPZ Forest Preserve, The Sea Ranch, March 2016

By Jeff Rebischung, owner of Fine Tree Care

In January of 2016, Jeff Rebischung was contacted by a group of Association Members of The Sea Ranch regarding a Non-Industrialized Timber Management Plan (NTMP) which had just been submitted to Cal-Fire, and subsequently returned to the submitting Registered Professional Forester (RPF) with approximately 48 enumerated remediation requirements. While there had been some notice by the Sea Ranch Board of Directors that tree removal would take place in the Central Timber Production Zone (CTPZ), the scale undertaken by the recently filed NTMP did not appear to those Association Members to be consistent with the presentation of a recent rule change, or their understanding of the intended use of their common property.

5. Home FIRE SAFE Home

by Jeff Rebischung, owner of Fine Tree Care

Many of us in Sonoma County live in areas where houses are nestled into grasslands, riparian areas, woodlands, and forests. Even homes within city limits adjoin large areas of vegetative fuel capable of transmitting fire. These homes are truly connected to, and are a part of the wildland fire fuels. If it burns, it is fire-fuel. Most people think only of how the wildlands threaten their property, imagining a fire burning toward their home. However, our homes and our activities around the home can also be the cause of a wildland fire, or continue to carry a fire through our property and to our neighbor’s homes.