Paradise burning: how to live with wildfire - threat of forest wildfires on neighborhoods - includes related article

American Forests, Jan-Feb, 1992 by Herbert E. McLean

Do you own property in a fire-prone area? Here are cutting-edge ideas from neighborhoods that have really felt the heat. like science fiction," mused one witness to the Oakland holocaust.

"I lost the house I raised my children in," mourned a city councilwoman.

"It's terrible from the air, terrible from the ground," observed California Governor Pete Wilson.

Last October, the nation's worst-ever loss of homes to a wildfire (2,813 houses, 433 apartments) served as an awesome, grim postscript to the West's 1991 fire season. The Oakland inferno fulfilled a scenario that U.S. Forest Service and California Department of Forestry (CDF) officials have feared for years.

The estimated $3 billion property loss and $10 million bill for fighting the fire pales when compared with the loss of fife and the towering intensity of the flames. Fueled by wood structures, bone-dry grass, and oil-heavy eucalyptus trees, then explosively propelled on steep slopes by winds gusting to 40 miles per hour, the inferno claimed 25 lives in one catastrophic afternoon and evening.

Out of the devastation came a compelling question for those of us who live in similar wildfire environments: Can we protect our homes from a similar fate?

And if so, how?

Weeks before the Oakland disaster, this same question led me into a four-state, 4,500-mile quest for answers. Constantly in my mind was the foreboding thought that the fire-prone West was in its fifth year of drought.

For those willing to "get real" about fire protection, I found solutions that hold legitimate hope.

ARNOLD GETS TOUGH

Some 125 miles east of Oakland, fire broke out in the Sierra foothills near the little town of Mokelumne Hill in 1989. The thermometer stood at 102 degrees with 10 percent humidity. "The fire exploded, jumped a two-lane highway, and burned 400 acres," recalls Carl Kent, a California forestry department arson investigator. That same summer at the nearby community of Railroad Flat, an arson-caused fire crackled through 10,000 acres in eight days, and a 100-engine strike team converged to protect foothill homes-at horrendous cost.

Fires like the ones at Mokelumne Hill and Railroad Flat have for years reminded folks in nearby Arnold (population 12,000) that they might be next.

They have reason to fear. Dry grass, manzanita brush, and ponderosa pine cover the canyons surrounding Arnold, afternoon winds from the Pacific supply oxygen, and property owners by the thousands have erected flammable homes. Add a dry lightning strike or one thoughtless person discarding ashes from a barbecue, and the scenario erupts.

Art Hastings, who heads the California forestry department fire station in Arnold, relates that as recently as 1978, "Almost every such fire spread into the forest. Each time, we would deploy 13 engines, two aerial tankers, plus hand crews. "

Well, times have changed in Arnold. A gung-ho group known as Volunteers in Prevention (VIP), believing that people can make a difference, is encouraging property owners to take fire protection seriously. Supporting VIP's efforts: the California Department of Forestry, U.S. Forest Service, and the Ebbets Pass Fire District.

Helped by tough new state laws (see "California Lays Down the Law" on page 26), a group of 80 VIPS -many of them seniors-fan out through the community to spread the word. They stress the need for providing adequate clearance around homes, storing firewood away from structures, and clearing flammables for at least 100 feet on downhill slopes-measures that might have saved Oakland.

The VIP work is coordinated by Sharon Torrence, a state forestry fire officer who relies heavily on inspection reports from the volunteers. For homeowners who choose not to cooperate, the initial fine is $119.

The results are impressive:

* Since Arnold's VIP effort began 12 years ago, it has become California's leading wildfire-protection program.

* The inspections have triggered the issuance of more than 1,000 citations since 1980 in this get-tough approach.

* Compliance with the regulations following a citation is now better than 99 percent.

* The Insurance Services Organization (ISO) fire-insurance rating for Arnold has improved dramatically, reducing insurance premiums. Reasons: All subdivisions now require fire-resistant roofs in place of shingles and shakes, and Arnold today has a 200foot-wide firebreak around most of its periphery.

A HIRED PRO

The 1960 Donner Fire just north of California's Lake Tahoe makes the Railroad Flat disaster seem like small potatoes. Driven by winds of 50 miles per hour, the Donner Fire consumed 45,000 acres from Donner Pass clear to the Nevada border. In its path: manzanita, buckbrush and bitterbrush, Jeffrey pine, and other fuels to the tune of 30 tons per acre.

In the decades following the 1960 fire, the community of Tahoe Donner came into existence. Today the handwriting is on the wall for Tahoe Donner. The prescription for disaster: 6,100 residential lot hilly terrain, convective winds that compress through the Donner Pass venturi, plenty of fuel, and your choice of starts: weekend barbecuers, lightning, arson, structural fires, or blazes that commonly ignite along Southern Pacific Railroad's right-of-way.