Hopland Neighbors Put Years of Wildfire Preparation to the Test During the Feliz Fire

HOPLAND, Calif. — Mendocino County has 24 neighborhoods recognized under the national Firewise USA program, from Westport to Yorkville. Three of them ring Hopland: Feliz Creek, McNab Ranch, and Nelson Vineyard. When the Feliz Fire broke out along Feliz Creek Road on Aug. 1 and began racing toward the Highway 101, it arrived in one of the few corners of the county where entire neighborhoods had spent years preparing for exactly that kind of emergency.

The fire destroyed no homes. It ran east, away from the communities, pushed by the afternoon winds that funnel up the valley, residents said. That spared the neighborhoods greater damage.

In the early hours of the fire, however, residents didn't know which way it would turn. They knew only that they had prepared.

On McNab Ranch, volunteers had installed signs at every dead end and given each property its own address sign.

"That was huge, because our addresses aren't even in order," said Sue Zanetell, a volunteer organizer with the McNab Firewise Community.

Volunteers drove the ranch's roads, recorded which houses sat on the left and right, and gave the list to the fire department so crews could locate homes quickly. As Zanetell put it, firefighters would know that "this house is three houses up."

Grants had funded roadside vegetation clearing and, in April 2026, 15 additional 2,500-gallon water tanks, bringing the ranch's total to 21. The tanks were plumbed and ready along the roads. The community also had emergency radios and a repeater that could reach Ukiah.

The ranch's fire-safety effort began with a meeting at a road junction in 2019 and earned Firewise recognition in 2024, Zanetell said. On May 30, about two months before the fire, Mendocino County conducted a wildfire training exercise on the ranch. Fire crews from Hopland and Ukiah responded as they would to a real emergency while landowners acted out the scenario.

"It's more than a few people making this all work," Zanetell said. "It's [a] broader community closer together helping each other."

On the Feliz Creek side, Bernadette Byrne, an organizer with the community who lives on Road 110, said she and a neighbor had spent the year clearing weeds and maintaining a private dirt road connecting Feliz Creek to McNab Ranch. Their goal was to keep it passable for vehicles in an emergency.

"I was really pleased that we took it upon ourselves to keep it maintained and clean so it was passable for those who chose to use it during the fire," she said.

When the fire came, residents used the road to evacuate — but in the opposite direction from the one they had anticipated needing.

Hopland Fire Protection District Chief Mitch Franklin said he had told community members for years that the route could serve as an evacuation option from Feliz Creek to McNab and also in the opposite direction.

"No one seemed to believe that," he said.

The road crosses two private properties. Incorporating it into the communities' fire-safety planning required assurances that it would be used only during an emergency, Zanetell said. A landowner, now deceased, had recognized the need for the route, and representatives of both communities took the arrangement to Mendocino County to have it documented.

Byrne estimated that about three McNab Ranch residents traveled the road toward Feliz Creek during the fire. The fire's eastward movement meant the route at the western end of the communities remained useful as an escape option.

On Aug. 18, the two communities met with the fire district at the Hopland firehouse to review the response. Byrne said the discussion made clear that the route still needs better signs showing where it is and how to use it.

The preparation also made a difference closer to home, Byrne said. Firefighters were "very appreciative of the home hardening and the defensible space," she said. Some properties with adequate clearance around structures "gave the fire department room to work with."

Franklin said the biggest change he has seen in a decade of firefighting is the increase in defensible space around homes. He attributed the shift in part to insurance companies dropping homeowners from conventional policies onto the state's FAIR Plan, as well as chipper days organized by the Fire Safe Council.

Not all the preparations were needed during the Feliz Fire. Firefighters never drew water from the ranch's 21 tanks, Zanetell said. Franklin said most of the water used to fight the fire came from municipal hydrants and was transported by water tenders. Helicopters also drew water from nearby ponds and a reservoir south of Saracina Vineyards.

What the fire underscored, Byrne said, was the value of making preparation a habit.

"There's more to do," she said.

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