Strict Measures Helped Save Homes

The Santiago Canyon blaze raged within 50 feet of Foothill Ranch subdivisions, but officials said the fact that no homes were damaged underscores the effectiveness of strict fire prevention measures now required of all new Orange County housing developments.

In a sign of how confident firefighters were of the measures, Foothill Ranch residents were never asked to evacuate their homes, even as winds blew the fire frighteningly close to their backyards.

“It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t scary either,” resident Carl Chapman said. “We were pretty confident.”

The regulations require residents to use nonflammable building materials and aggressively clear brush near their homes. So if you see a white picket fence or a gazebo in Foothill Ranch or neighboring Portola Hills, you can bet it’s not made of wood. And there isn’t a wood-shake roof in sight.

The strict building requirements mean homes nearest the hillside have double-paned windows and fences, patio coverings and gazebos made of something other than wood, Deputy Fire Marshal Laura Blau said.

Although the county developed the fire safety measures in 1977 as recommendations, it wasn’t until after the devastating Laguna Beach fire in 1993 that these construction features were adopted into the building and fire code and required of all new developments.

“No homes were burned, and that’s the bottom line,” said Capt. Scott Brown, spokesman for Orange County Fire Authority. “It was terrible that we lost almost 9,000 acres but we were successful in saving that community, which should serve as a model for any community in a fire-prone area.”

The Laguna fire destroyed more than 300 homes. The structures that survived contained fire-retardant materials and noncombustible landscaping such as ice plant. Though some well-protected homes did burn in that fire, these defenses gave the surviving homes an important edge.

“We call it winners and losers,” said Garry Layman, a spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority. Firefighters “want to pick a house that is a winner. There are some homes that are so much of a loser that even if you had five fire engines parked in front of it, it’s still going to burn because it was designed for disaster.”

But because Foothill Ranch and Portola Hills were designed with fire protection in mind, “houses in these two developments are all winners,” Layman said.

As a result, firefighters have been “focused more on the emotional well-being of the citizens than having to worry about deploying hose lines in their backyards,” Layman said. Residents “were panicked. But we were comfortable [Tuesday] night when the flames were within a few hundred feet. The citizens were calling us, and we were telling them to go to bed. That is extremely unusual.”

In Foothill Ranch, many homes overlook large stretches of open terrain that is home to wildlife. The developer was required to create a 170-foot buffer zone between the wild land area and any homes.

There is a relatively flat 20-foot area around the homes where possession of any type of combustible material is illegal. Beyond that, there is a 50-foot area where the developer was required to remove all vegetation and replace it with fire-resistant plants such as Eastwood manzanita, chaparral bloom and bush poppy. Those plants are regularly watered by automatic sprinklers.

The remaining 100 feet of the zone is not irrigated, Blau said, but homeowner associations must keep 30% to 50% of the vegetation cleared and remove any dead or dry vegetation.

“The whole concept is that it gives us a defensible stance against the fire,” Blau said. “It slows a fire down as it goes through thinning zones, and once it reaches the [irrigated] zone, it might stop there.”

On Wednesday, as the fire flared anew, the buffer zone worked.

“We knew that the fire would burn down to the greenbelt, and it did,” Brown said. The greenbelt “did what it was designed to do: it slowed the fire down.”

Officials said the biggest lesson from the Santiago Canyon fire is clear: The fire prevention methods work.

“These elements were really pivotal in our ability to save that neighborhood,” he said. “If they had not been in place, the outcome would have been far worse and we may have even lost some structures.”

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Reining in a Fire

Firefighters battling the Santiago Canyon blaze have relied on a combination of planning, skill and luck to keep flames from reaching homes in Foothill Ranch. A closer look at the strategy:

Beating Back the Flames

Fire commanders employ a number of techniques to deny fuel to the fire and channel flames into natural or man-made fire breaks.

Anticipating the Unexpected

Unpredictable winds can fan flames and whip up embers that spark spot fires.

Defensible Space

Developers are required to incorporate safety zones in new neighborhoods.

Sources: Capt. Scott Brown, Orange County Fire Authority; Michelle Miller, Transportation Corridor Agencies

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times