Corte Madera is moving to bury overhead utility lines and upgrade evacuation routes on Lower Christmas Tree Hill, a densely built hillside neighborhood where roughly 275 homes sit along narrow, steep, one-lane roads with limited ways out during an emergency.

The town listed the Lower Christmas Tree Hill Undergrounding and Evacuation Improvement Project as an active Public Works effort on its website as of Tuesday, Aug. 4. The project falls under Corte Madera's broader "Adapt" climate resilience initiative, with details hosted at cortemaderaadapts.org/hillside.

The listing appeared the same week as the July 27 Hillside Fire in Mill Valley, which burned on a steep slope less than five miles away. Southern Marin Fire credited prior vegetation management work with slowing that blaze's spread.

A neighborhood built for views, not evacuations

Christmas Tree Hill's winding roads were paved in the 1920s; before that, residents reached homes by footpath. The zig-zag street pattern that gives the hill its name also means limited egress during a wildfire. Central Marin Fire has prioritized the area for defensible space inspections in 2023 and 2025, funded through the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority's Measure C program.

Since 2021, Central Marin Fire and the MWPA have also conducted evacuation route vegetation management in Corte Madera, targeting roads used for emergency egress and areas beneath power lines. Burying those lines eliminates a documented ignition source: overhead wires downed by wind or falling trees have sparked wildfires across California.

A comparable Marin County undergrounding project on Redwood Highway in Strawberry carried an estimated price tag of $4.5 million, funded through PG&E's Rule 20A program credits. Whether the same funding mechanism applies to Christmas Tree Hill has not been confirmed.

Part of a broader capital push

The undergrounding project is one of four active capital efforts under the Adapt initiative. The others: the 2025 Storm Drain Replacement Project, the Madera Garden Complete Streets Project, and the Paradise Drive Complete Street Project. As we reported Aug. 2, the Paradise Drive multiuse path recently landed in a $200 million regional transportation plan.

In a January 2026 message to residents about tidal flooding, Town Manager Adam Wolff wrote that Corte Madera's climate adaptation work spans both its bayside communities and its hillside neighborhoods, documented in the town's 2021 Climate Adaptation Assessment and the 2024 Shoreline Adaptation Engagement Effort. The Christmas Tree Hill project represents the hillside side of that equation.