In Almaden Valley, at least one group of homeowners is taking steps to make sure the Southland firestorm that is burning everything in its path doesn't happen here.

The Montego Homeowners Association, a group of owners of 55 homes on Montego Drive and Court off of Camden Avenue, is responsible for 24 hillside acres behind their homes. This steep hillside is dense with oak trees, manzanita and poison oak, which isn't the problem. It is the some 100 dead pine trees—victims of the pine bark beetles—that have residents worried.

"Trees infected with the pine bark beetle, they just explode in a fire," said Montego Drive resident Harlan Pester, who is one of the homeowners pushing to get the trees removed. "I think the key is being really pro-active. We have a common area and we're responsible for it."

The trees in question are visible from Camden Avenue, standing as bare and brown poles among the dusty green of the oaks on the hill. Fire officials say they are basically kindling waiting for a spark to set them off.

There are two stands of the pines—the trees are roughly 8 to 14 inches in diameter—that have to be removed. One stand is near a little alley off of Montego, where dead trees have often fallen across the street. The other stand is higher up the hill and well behind the homes on Montego Court.

Members of the Montego Homeowners Association planted nearly 500 pine trees and some redwoods in the mid-1970s at the suggestion of arborists familiar with the local terrain, hoping the trees would help slow the erosion of the hillside.

The redwoods are healthy and growing. "We held planting parties on the hill that year," said resident Joe Acterman. "The pines were fine until the darn beetles hit them."

Pine bark beetles feed primarily on the inner bark of the trees. This has the same effect as girdling (peeling off the bark to exposed wood) of the tree. Damage caused by their feeding acts as an internal tourniquet, cutting off the flow of nutrients from the leaves to the other parts of the tree. As the damage progresses, sugars and other complex compounds cannot move from the leaves to non-photosynthetic areas of the tree. The beetle also introduces a blue stain fungus that grows into the wood. This fungus prevents water from being transported upward to the needles. Both of these factors contribute to the decline and death of colonized trees.

Four years ago, the homeowners association removed some 400 trees that had died after pine bark beetle infestation from a five-acre hillside that faces Camden. Backed by a grant from San Jose Beautiful, the association replanted the hillside and the new landscaping is now growing well.

Pester has been working with a group of neighbors to devise a way to get the last of the trees out without too much cost. After talking with representatives from the San Jose Fire Department and the California Department of Forestry, and negotiating with several tree services and the city, Pester says the work can be done for as little as $200-per-homeowner assessment. That fee would cover the cutting down of the trees and the movement of the cut wood to the street. Pester said the city would remove the wood from the street free of charge, saving the homeowners thousands of dollars.

One of the people Pester has been talking with is Fire Captain Ralph Ortega, who heads the SJFD's Wildland Program.

"A fire that got to [the dead pines] would be unmanageable," said Ortega. "I told them about defensible space and how to better their chances if there were a fire."

Ortega says most homeowners who live in urban-wildland interface areas understand the danger of fire and take his advice about clearing an area 30 feet from their homes. But others haven't heeded his warnings.

One example Ortega offered was a house destroyed in a fire in the Borell area last year. "I went out there the other day and it looks the same," with all the dry weeds and scrub, Ortega said. "Some people take it to heart. Other people, they're living on a hillside with a 50-degree slope and have six-foot-high weeds right next to their homes."

Joan Loeffler, who had lived on Montego Drive for 32 years, said the fires eating up home after home in Southern California should resonate with any homeowner who lives near wildlands.

"When you see all of these things happening on television, it makes you want to respond and respond much more quickly," Loeffler said. "You really want to see action. It is a wake-up call. One thing that stays in my mind was what one of the returning firefighters said. He said, 'We could have saved a lot more homes if they had cleared away the brush.'"

Loeffler's hope is to make sure that by next summer, the dead trees are gone and there is a 30-foot area cleared behind each house on the ridge.

"To sit back during fire season and say we've done everything possible," Loeffler said, "that's my goal."

The Montego Homeowners Association is taking other steps to eliminate "ladder fuel," the grasses and dead foliage that, if it were to catch fire, would help to move the fire to trees and structures. The association contracted with a goat herder, who brought in a herd of some 50 Pygmy West African goats, who, for 13 days, ate and ate and ate, clearing the hill of almost all of the weeds and poison oak.

"These goats love poison oak. They ate it down to the ground," said Pester, who added that using goats instead of a herbicide had other advantages. "Things like [the weed killer] Roundup takes the nitrogen out of the ground, and the poison oak and weeds just come back. With the goats, they love poison oak and they provide their own nitrogen," in the form of goat droppings.

The Montego Homeowners Association will vote on the proposal at its Dec. 6 meeting, and passage of the proposal requires a simple majority vote. There is competition for the association's funds, however, as another group of homeowners wants to spend association money to resurface the common pool after a vandalism attack left a large hole in the plaster on the bottom of the pool—something Pester says makes little sense.

"They will be sitting around, guarding the money box while ashes fall around them," he said.