The Climate Ready North Fair Oaks team (NFO’s CCCT) has been working to plant trees in the neighborhood to combat extreme heat and poor air quality.

Trees provide a wide array of community benefits, including filtering air and water, providing shade, sequestering carbon, providing habitat, and increasing community mental and physical health.

Alongside CRNFO partners Canopy and the Stanford Future Bay Initiative, CRC has mapped the existing tree canopy in NFO, identified street segments most conducive to planting, and conducted canvassing to plant trees in North Fair Oaks. As of September 2022, nearly 75 trees had been planted through the initiative.

Extreme Heat in North Fair Oaks

Extreme heat is one of the most pressing issues within NFO. A lack of shade trees and green infrastructure, as well as high levels of impermeable concrete surfaces, make NFO much hotter than surrounding communities. There are also high levels of asthma and cardiovascular disease, making NFO especially vulnerable to the deadly combination of heat and smoke. An analysis of extreme heat conducted in 2021 through the Stanford Future Bay Initiative (SFBI) found that parts of North Fair Oaks are 10 degrees hotter on average than in neighboring Atherton.

In 2020, SFBI led a project mapping the tree canopy in North Fair Oaks. The final dashboard ranks each parcel within NFO according to its urban canopy need based on factors including foot traffic, tree scarcity, and average temperature.