A Closer Look at the Wildfire Problem

Ray Ford speaks the truth and tells it like it is. However those areas most at risk are the areas with big houses and lots of greenery, i.e the realm of the wealthy. Us po' folk don't have acreage and we tend to live in big ugly flat tracts, but far less fire hazard. Even when the "Paint" Fire entered some relatively middle class areas it was the absolute upper end of the price range of homes that burned. My puny little shack (which I dearly love and am very content to own) was never seriously threatened because it is surrounded by other puny little shacks, open space (streets and lawns) and is easily defensible from fire storms. Getting the rich to do anything that will benefit the community at large but which interferes with their luxurious lifestyles will be difficult if not impossible. Maybe they need another tax cut. Not!

Good article. It is time someone also takes a look at the strategies, equipment and personnel this city uses to fight these fires - they were completely overwhelmed by the Tea Fire, despite the fact this city had over 30 years to prepare for that very fire. While it is commendable they were able to prevent even more homes from burning, no one should be satisfied with firefighting efforts that result in the loss of over 200 homes and destroys the lives of countless people.
It has been reported that the firefighters and trucks became trapped on Mountain Drive and were unable to get to the Riviera until many homes there had already burned - most without a single firefighter having appeared to fight the fire or evacuate the residents. It is imperative a critical assessment of these firefighting strategies and resources be undertaken - there will soon be other wildfires here, perhaps even more devastating - can the city honestly claim to be prepared?

The comparisons between the Tea Fire and the Gap fire are useful. While wind, or the lack of it, was crucial, the land use pattern north of town was Goleta's buffer. The agricultural use north of Goleta is a massive insurance policy which Santa Barbara has lost.

Subdivision and changes in land use north of Goleta must be avoided at all costs lest we invite disaster.

Wow, great point Goletaman!!

Defining what constitutes brush -- as well as who is responsible for clearing it (private owner, city, or county) -- is critical. My insurance company recently notified me that it has increased its brush clearance requirement up to 1,500 feet. Though my house is in a developed and regularly maintained neighborhood, the expanded requirement now includes an uninhabited canyon just over the county line that is filled with brush. As a result, I am now disqualified for coverage through my existing provider, and am scrambling to find a new policy. There are probably many homeowners facing this hurdle.

With both the Tea Fire and the Gap Fire, I am amazed that the public discussion has only hinted at the fact that these fires were started by irresponsible people. As I live very close to where the Gap Fire was raging, I am keenly aware that there should be more sanctions about people shooting outside of the Gun Club There should not have been a bon fire( any fires!) where the Tea Fire began. Those of us who live in " fire danger" area are doing our part. Let's have an honest discussion about those who are abusing our back country!

With the recent holiday time off from work to take some nice bike rides through our local foothills, it becomes apparent that some of the most pleasant parts of town, Mountain Drive, Gibraltar, Mission Canyon, Old San Marcos/Painted Cave, are nicely wooded areas with quirky yet beautiful homes. I don't imagine those areas would be as highly sought after nor as nice to spend time in if they were stripped of vegetation and felt more like tract homes. In fact these wooded roads are a big part of Santa Barbara's identity and what gives the community a nice feel.

The fact is, the owners of homes on these roads know they are in high fire risk areas. They know they have limited evacuation options. The list of Tea fire homes that burned held few surprises, Mountain, Gibraltar, and homes on the West side of Sycamore Canyon, are all wooded and hilly, with winding roads with difficult access and historically fire prone.

To me (and this comes from a very anti-tax person) it should be more about an additional property tax for fire prone hillside homes that can go towards better fire prevention and protection for those homes. The homes down in the gridded area of Santa Barbara, however more tract-like and less secluded, are far less susceptible to wildfire and far easier to protect. The flat-landers should not be footing the bill for the hill-siders in terms of fire protection.

What I want to know is why can't the city/county control the massive conversion of landscapes and chaparral landscape infested with weeds? If city/county officials said clean this up within x-number of days or we're going to do it for you and charge you for doing it, than not only will it cut down on potentially devastating fires, but it would no doubt put money in the city/county coffers.

mddesignhomes.com

The lemon and avocado groves buffered us Goletans from the GAP fire. I live below the Franklins and Bottiani's groves in the residential area and were relieved when we spoke to them the first night that the trees were very wet when the fire broke out. This agricultural buffer is essential to our community. All the more reason to not build in our foothills and replace these agricultural barriers!

Why hasn't the problem of planting explosive eucalyptus trees been addressed. They are not native to California and should have never been planted!

Here are the problems as I see it!!! First it is not only invasive plants , it is invasive building by ALL!!!! Fires are natures way of eliminating the OLD to make way for new generation. If you wish to build in natures way, then you will suffer the wrath of fire!!! All of the Santa Barbara area is overpopulated!! Fire and floods will come. People will die and homes will be lost, just get used to it. All the experts in the world cannot change that. The future may be modified to some degree, but the outcome will remain the same. That is the price of living in an overpopulated paradise!!!!

An excellent article, but two important facts are missing.

The largest fuel source in the WUI is homes. The radiant heat from a burning home is enough to ignite neighboring homes, which often ignite from the inside as drapes and furniture catch fire simply from the intensity of the heat coming from the fire outside. Until we apply the same level of concern to how we construct homes in the WUI as we do to managing vegetation, there will be no end to the catastrophic fires. I can guarantee you that when Tea Fire homes are reconstructed, they will be just as flammable (or nearly so) as the ones that burned. That's foolish and short-sighted.

The other elephant in the living room is the question of whether people should live in these areas at all. They evolved to burn and there is nothing we can do to change the fact that they will be visited by fires over and over again. The environmental price of replacing massive homes and all the possessions they contain is never acknowledged, nor is the possibility that perhaps we shouldn't have homes in the WUI at all. That's just too radical an idea for most folks.

These are all great comments, but all miss a MAJOR point. Chaparral is a fire DEPENDENT ecosystem. It should burn ~every 7-10 years. The longer it goes without burning, the greater the fuel load, the hotter and more intense the fire, and thus the more difficult to extinguish. You can't expect and ecosystem that has depended on regular fire activity to sustain it's existence to stop burning or being prone to burning just because we want it to. The answer lies in preventing homes from being victims of flying embers, and allowing nature to run it's course with smaller and more manageable fires. We in the west are paying the price for Gifford Pinochet's turn of the century ignorance and must change the way we think of fire and it's role in the ecosystem in which we reside.

I know it's accepted wisdom that our chaparral is acclimated to fire, or as "poedag" suggests, even a "fire-dependent" ecosystem, but I question the premise.

An expert in these matters, puts to rest this s (sub)urban legend:

http://www.independent.com/news/2008/dec...

While Dr. Muller is certainly an expert in Chaparral biology, there is very little way (at this point) to determine where fire occurred when looking at sediment cores. A better approach would be tree-rings from live or petrified wood, as this has a more defined spatial component.

Understandably there is resistance to accepting fire as part of an ecosystem, even from the scientific community (of which i am part of). My point was not to state that we should burn the hillsides on purpose, but rather that fire is a part of the ecosystem (even in Dr. Muller's article he states as much) and when choosing to build a home in a fire prone or fire adapted ecosystem, precautions must be taken to avoid your house burning down (closed eves, tile roofs, etc....). Hope this clarifies things for you

Pope - Why should there be higher taxes to live in that area? Our taxes are high enough thank you very much.

In case you didn't know we already pay additional taxes for fire suppression efforts.

We pay a higher premium with our insurance companies.

Our neighborhood didn't see the first fire truck until after 11:00 o'clock that night, several hours after the homes all burned to the ground. Even if we all paid higher taxes it wouldn't have saved our homes at all so what's the point.

If you want someone to pay for the cost of fighting the fire then tax those "young adults" that started the fire.

Perhaps the solution is to make sure that those individuals that start fires are punished enough to prevent others from doing the same thing.

All of us that lost our homes have been punished enough and don't need insult to injury.

We had cleared our brush, most of us more than the city requires.

We are paying to rebuild our homes and lives, many of us grossly under-insured.

We don't need more taxes for heaven's sake.

We have had the Zaca, Gap and Tea fires within the past 18 months. We need to control our ignition sources. The Gap and Tea fires were started by arson in the one case and carelessness in the other of people who either maliciously or carelessly started fires. Perhaps we need to examine the use of the recreation areas along the urban/forest interface. The ranks of experienced hikers and nature lovers seem to be infiltrated by inner city youths who neither appreciate nor understand the wilderness. For many of them the attraction of the area as a place to hang out is the absence of authority. While they may not start fires out of malice, their ignorance of the proper procedures may have the same result. While as do not want to degrade the wilderness experience by too much supervision, we have to establish some control to protect the community. How do we do this?

We need a lot more fire personnel patrolling areas such as the tea garden and the tunnel road trail. I have been hiking these areas for many years, and rarely see fire personnel there. We should have mountain biking fire persons just like we have bicycle cops down town.

First of all, it is incorrect to say that chapparal is fire dependent. Secondly, while the historical fire regime for a forest is 10-30 years, shrubland has a much longer regime (30-130). When it is burned more frequently, a cyclic effect occurs where more exotic grasses take over and thus the land is more susceptible to fire, thereby increasing fire frequency. For anyone wanting to get the story straight, check out the work of Richard W. Halsey, Director of the California Chaparral Institute. He has produced two great book on this subject: Fire, Chaparral and Survival in Southern California and just recently Fire, Chaparral and Survival in Southern California.

More fire fighters, what a novel idea... In this economy every government agencies is feeling the pinch, whether it be fire fighters, policeman or even county office workers.

As far as how the fires get started, specifically negligent people really needed to open their eyes wide and see the cause and effects of their actions. How many times have you driven down the road and seen an idiot throw their cigarette out the window? I don't know about you, but it really makes me made and I want to track them down and give a lecture. Well, I have a few times but that can back fire if that person who threw the cigarette out the window is on the angry side.

So, as long as we have idiots, wind and burnable fire areas, we will have disasters.

Gail

A discussion about building codes within the fire-prone area might be helpful. Disallowing any use of flammable materials during re-construction of fire-destroyed homes seems to be logical, given the circumstances. Better use of reinforced adobe, concrete, or rammed earth for walls, and using tile or metal for roofing seems much more appropriate than building with flammable materials.

"Getting the rich to do anything that will benefit the community at large but which interferes with their luxurious lifestyles will be difficult if not impossible. Maybe they need another tax cut. Not!"

With all the fire and tax talk in SB, there seems to be the belief that all rich people are corrupt and all the poor are
honest. I think there are corrupt poor and corrupt rich.
Also honest rich people and honest poor people.