A group of volunteers are helping Williamson County with a massive firefighting project ahead of wildfire season.

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas – A group of volunteers is helping Williamson County with a major firefighting project that helps protect land, homes and animals while saving the community money.

The Rubicon team is doing preventative work to protect homes and endangered species in Williamson County.

“While it’s not someone’s worst day, we’re preventing their worst day by doing this job,” said Team Rubicon volunteer Keith Elwell.

About 40 volunteers from Team Rubicon took their saws and went to work in the Twin Springs Preserve in Williamson County.

“We’re free and everyone’s here because we love doing it,” said Tim Mollock, Commander of the Rubicon team, “it will save the community over $100,000.”

They created a shaded fuel break. “It’s about removing dead trees that the Parks and Preservation Department thinks we’re removing are either too wild or too big or too small,” Texas State Team Rubicon Administrator Oscar Arauco said.

Approximately 75,000 square feet have been cleared.

“We want to separate the trees from the houses and we want there to be a break, we want it to be shaded which means we still have top cover for the wonderful critters that live in the area and for the people, to walk and be able to enjoy the shade, but we also want to separate from the fuel so that the fuel is not near the houses,” said Arauco.

He said that if the fire did start, it would stop at a fuel break.

In 2022, the Texas A&M Forest Service and local fire departments responded to nearly 12,000 wildfires that burned more than 640,000 acres across the state, including hundreds of acres in Williamson County.

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“Anything we can do to help local first responders get in and put out these fires by creating these breaks, giving them some time, giving them some space is great,” Arauco said.

This shaded fuel break is part of the Williamson County Wildfire Protection Plan and the Habitat Conservation Plan to protect endangered species such as Georgetown’s goldenthroats and salamanders.

“From an ecological point of view, this is the optimal time of the year to help the environment, the warbler breeding season, as far as I understand, begins on the first of March, so we have about three months to carry it out,” Arauco said.

If you would like to volunteer for the next Team Rubicon project, please click here.