Tough Fire Protection Plan Touted

With a strict brush clearance law and tough growth control measures, Ventura County was spared the kind of destruction visited on other Southern California communities during recent wildfires and should serve as a model for fire prevention, officials said Wednesday.

Restricting urban sprawl and limiting housing in semi-rural communities surrounded by wildlands are effective ways to prevent the level of destruction seen in other areas, said former state Sen. William Campbell, chairman of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Fire Commission.

“We cannot just count on increased firefighting resources to solve our wildland fire problem,” Campbell said during a special panel meeting convened in Thousand Oaks to examine local firefighting operations and prevention practices.

Representatives from the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the governor’s Office of Emergency Services and the U.S. Forest Service were among those present.

While more than 3,600 homes were lost in the October firestorms, most in San Diego and San Bernardino counties, only 24 homes were destroyed and 14 damaged in Ventura County.

“That’s the largest [property loss] we’ve ever had locally,” said county Fire Chief Bob Roper, whose department serves six of the county’s 10 cities and the unincorporated areas.

“But many of them were older homes without many of the noncombustible materials” required on newer buildings, Roper said.

Another measure of the relative losses comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which registered 32,990 requests for disaster assistance after the fires. Fewer than 1% of those came from Ventura County residents.

According to FEMA spokesman Ricardo Zunuga, 82 people in Ventura County have received about $478,000 in emergency assistance as of Tuesday, out of more than $27 million disbursed throughout the fire zone. This is in addition to some $127 million in federal loans approved so far to help fire victims rebuild their properties, he said.

Fire officials have long stressed the idea of preventing fires by reducing excess vegetation, but Roper said the recent devastation -- more than 20 people perished in the fires and more than a dozen others died in subsequent flash floods on Christmas Day -- has gotten the attention of the public and politicians.

“The most disappointing part, to me, is that it took the loss of so many homes before we got officials to listen,” Roper said after his testimony. “This problem did not develop this year. This problem has been developing for decades.”

Unlike San Diego County, Ventura County has its own fire department, which gives it an added advantage when it comes to firefighting coordination and enforcement of aggressive prevention measures.

To control vegetation growth, the department conducts regular controlled burns in brushy areas. It also overseas aerial spraying of herbicides to kill targeted plants and uses heavy machinery, such as chipping machines or disc plows, to remove vegetation.

And though goats and sheep have been used in the past to remove vegetation from hard-to-reach hillside areas, Roper said his department hoped to work with cattle ranchers in the rural Santa Clara Valley to get them to adjust their fence lines and graze these zones in the spring before the annual fire season begins.

“We’ve tapped every available grant resource to help fund our fuel management program,” he said.

Roper told the commission that since 1967, Ventura County has required property owners to remove all brush and debris within 100 feet of their homes or be fined. For those who don’t comply, the county hires contractors to clear the land and sends owners the bill -- along with a $635 administrative fee.

Of nearly 15,000 notices sent to property owners, Roper said the county has to clear only about 30 parcels a year, down from several hundred annually in the program’s early years.

Roper said this fire prevention tool wouldn’t work without support from the county Board of Supervisors, which enforces the program. In fact, one negligent homeowners association in Thousand Oaks had a $49,000 lien placed against it last year for noncompliance.

“It’s not easy to sit there when you have one of your constituents screaming at you because they got a $635 bill because they were too lazy, too late or uninformed about weed abatement,” said Ventura County Supervisor Judy Mikels.

Mikels, one of more than two dozen state committee members at the session, urged other local politicians to insist on vegetation management programs, push for tougher building codes, provide sufficient fire department staffing and purchase the latest equipment.

San Diego County was hardest hit by the recent firestorms. The deadly Cedar fire destroyed more 3,200 homes. In addition to the lack of a countywide fire department, outdated communications equipment and poor coordination were among the factors cited for the substantial property losses.

The 33-member commission was created last fall to review firefighting efforts made during the October and November wildfires and to make recommendations for improvements. The panel, which gathered in San Bernardino County last month, is scheduled to meet Jan. 21 in San Diego.