Land clearing and defensible space
Clearing is the first machine on almost every job, and in this part of California it is also its own job: fuel reduction around a house, a lot that has been growing brush for a decade, or an orchard block coming out between crops.
What clearing covers
- Brush, blackberry, and star thistle down to bare ground
- Tree removal, stump grinding, and root raking
- Orchard and vineyard removal, pushed, piled, and ground
- Defensible space and fuel reduction around structures
- Building pad and driveway clearing on a raw lot
- Access roads cut in so the rest of the work can reach the site
- Masticating and chipping, or haul-off, depending on what you want left
Grind it or haul it
Cleared material either leaves on a truck or stays on site as chip. Hauling is cleaner and costs more; grinding is cheaper, keeps the organic matter, and leaves you with a mulch layer that suppresses regrowth for a season or two. On fuel reduction work, grinding is usually the right answer, and on a building pad it is not, because chip under a pad is a compaction problem.
We will tell you which one your job wants before you have to ask.
Defensible space, and what actually gets inspected
Cal Fire's standard is a hundred feet, in two zones: thirty feet of lean, clean, and green immediately around the structure, and seventy feet beyond it of reduced and separated fuel. Trees get limbed up, ladder fuels come out, and the spacing between canopies goes up as the slope does.
That is a machine job on a big lot and a hand job close to the house. We do both, and we work from the actual inspection checklist rather than from a general idea of tidiness.
Timing, burn permits, and nesting season
Clearing has a calendar. Burn permits and burn days are set by the air district and are seasonal. Bird nesting season restricts vegetation removal on many permitted projects between roughly February and August. Ground that is too wet to drive on in February is fine in May.
If the work is tied to a permit or a fire inspection with a date on it, tell us the date and we will build the schedule backward from it.
What clearing runs
| Item | Range |
|---|---|
| Light brush clearing | $1,200 to $3,500 per acre |
| Heavy brush and small trees | $3,500 to $8,000 per acre |
| Orchard removal, push, pile, and grind | $1,800 to $4,500 per acre |
| Stump grinding | $150 to $600 each |
| Defensible space, 100 foot zone around a house | $2,500 to $9,000 |
| Haul-off of cleared material | $14 to $28 per CY |
Unit ranges are what this kind of work has been going for in the Sacramento Valley, put here so you can sanity-check a budget. They are not a bid. Quantities, access, haul distance, and the spec move every one of them.
Questions we get
Often, yes. Grading permits kick in at a threshold of disturbed area or cut and fill depth, tree removal is regulated in most cities, and anything in or near a creek needs agency approval. Tell us the parcel and we will tell you what we think it needs before you spend money.
Yes, and we work to the inspection checklist rather than to a general standard of tidy. If you have a notice with a compliance date, send us a photo of it.
Ground into chip and left on site, or hauled off, whichever you want. Merchantable logs can be decked for a buyer if the volume is there.
Clearing and rough grade are usually one mobilization, so as soon as the pad is cut and compacted. What slows it down is stumps and organic material that have to come out from under the pad footprint, which is worth doing right.
Photos are stand-ins until our own job photos are up: public domain images from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Park Service, plus freely licensed photos from Wikimedia Commons (CC0 and CC BY-SA 4.0).
Request a bid: land clearing and defensible space
Scope, rough quantities, the town, and when the site is available. If there is a bid date on it, put the date and time in and we will confirm receipt the same day.
- The yard
- (530) 555-0142
- Bids and plan sets
- bids@northstateconstruction.com
- Where we work
- Butte, Glenn, Tehama, Colusa, Shasta, Sutter, and Yuba counties
- Yard at 4180 Midway, Chico, CA 95928
CSLB Class A General Engineering · license pending, expected June