California drought likely to play major role in future wildfire activity
By Fred Durso, Jr.Home
March April 2014 new In A FlashIn California, ranchers are selling their cattle, which are unable to graze off scorched pasturelands. Dried-up waterways are unearthing artifacts, including the ruins of a ghost town near Sacramento. Elsewhere, the Gold Rush is back on, with rivers running at such low levels that valuable nuggets are being revealed as the water recedes.
How dry is the state? Precipitation levels haven’t been this dire in more than 150 years, experts say, prompting Governor Jerry Brown to declare a drought emergency in January.
A more calamitous effect has been the “above-normal wildfire activity” in January, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC). NDMC’s January 2014 Drought and Impact Summary reports that California firefighters battled more than 400 fires that month, more than five times the average for January. And things might get worse.
Fire safety advocates are cringing at the possibility of a momentous year for wildfire events in California, now in its third consecutive year of an official drought. “I’ve heard from folks in California about just how dry it is and how scary the conditions are,” says Michele Steinberg, NFPA’s wildland fire projects manager. “One of the best factors for producing bigger wildfires is an abundance of dried-out fuel. If you have a home where you have water-dependent shrubs and plants that dry up, that’s providing more fuel for the fire.”
That’s why Steinberg and others are urging homeowners to take steps now — if they haven’t already — to mitigate the risks. More than 70 California communities have been recognized for implementing wildfire mitigation concepts through NFPA’s Firewise Communities/USA® Recognition Program. Looking to expand these concepts throughout the state, California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) tasked NFPA with developing a curriculum for Firewise workshops to be held throughout the state as soon as possible. Steinberg, who submitted a workshop proposal to Cal Fire in February, says the curriculum would focus on Firewise principles, helping participants identify hazards around their homes, and minimizing home ignition potential.
The proposed workshops are part of Cal Fire’s ongoing attempts to expand its fire prevention efforts. Funding this work is a fee applied to all habitable homes within California’s State Responsibility Area (SRA), locations where the state is responsible for the prevention and suppression of wildfire. Cal Fire, for instance, has already increased its workforce for vegetation management and has inspectors conducting defensible space inspections at homes.
“These efforts have been in the works for a few years,” says Dave Shew, Cal Fire’s staff chief and program manager for the SRA Fire Prevention Fee and California’s State Fire Plan. “Now that the drought has come about, we’re ahead of the game. If we had to start [these efforts] now, we’d be way behind the curve. Certainly the drought will be a big factor as we gear up for what will be a potentially devastating wildfire season. If we’re able to get ahead of what’s to come, all the better.”
Like a good neighbor…
Other U.S. communities aware of the benefits of mitigation work have received a helping hand from State Farm. The auto, home, and life insurer recently supplied a $60,000 grant to NFPA in support of two campaigns aimed at protecting homes and communities from wildfire.
One campaign, the Firewise Challenge, tasked Firewise communities and newcomers to the program with conducting risk-reduction activities. Firewise state liaisons and NFPA picked the winners, which were communities in Arkansas, Washington, Pennsylvania, California, and New Jersey. Winners will receive $5,000 each for future mitigation activities, including brush chipping and vegetation removal. Five additional communities in Virginia, Colorado, Oregon, Tennessee, and Maine received runner-up prizes of $900 for safety gear, tools, or mitigation work.
The remaining funds support the Wildfire Community Preparedness Day on May 3. Residents across the country are being asked to develop and participate in daylong activities to reduce their community’s wildfire risk. Twenty projects will receive grant money for their efforts.
“We certainly want everyone to understand the risk that comes with being a homeowner, and we want to reduce the chance for someone to file an insurance claim,” says Heather Paul, State Farm’s public affairs specialist. “If there’s a little preparation that can reduce the amount of damage, we very much want to support and encourage that.”
State Farm is well aware of the benefits of wildfire mitigation. Since 2003, the insurer has been conducting home inspections in wildfire-prone areas around the country using Firewise principles. “We encourage homeowners to have an inspection by an underwriter or contractor, recommend ways to mitigate, and then work with their agent to get those things completed,” says Paul. “If they don’t, that’s an opportunity to reevaluate if [their home] is too much of a risk for us to insure. If you’re a homeowner, you need to be responsible for those things.”
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