Page 12 - Sonoma County gazette September 2018

RESILIENCY cont’d from page 1
Here were the key findings, which are just as relevant today:
How to Grow Fire-Safe Communities
Recently, Gov. Jerry Brown stated that across California, we need to “re- examine” where communities in the state are built and developed.
Here in Sonoma County, it is time to start having the difficult conversation about fire-smart land use policies that can prevent loss of homes and life in a landscape that needs to burn and has always burned.
Incorporate wildfire scenario planning into local planning to get
a better sense of historical and projected wildfire-prone areas. Use this information to include wildfire issues in the comprehensive plan to reduce or prevent future development in wildfire-prone areas, and designate areas prone to wildfire in the future land use element and future land use maps.
The existing tools available for fire managers and planners to use in providing protection from wildland fires are environmental review, codes and regulations, the judicial process, and new legislation.
Here are the actions recommended, which we need to consider: 1: convince community planners to accept fire protection factors;
2: increase the role of fire protection entities in community planning;
3: strengthen siting and building regulations;
4: educate and change attitudes of planners and the public; and
5: work toward an equitable sharing of costs and protection responsibility by
developers, local governments, and fire protection agencies and departments.
Urban-Rural Interface - Sonoma County
This is an opportunity to rethink how and where we rebuild and renew our communities.
So what do we do?
A much more recent 2017 US EPA report titled Smart Growth Fixes for Climate Adaptation and Resilience (under the wildfire section) has a number of specific recommendations that we need to explore and employ. See https:// www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/smart-growth-fixes-climate-adaptation-and- resilience
Establish a task force that includes representatives from the public, nonprofit, private, and institutional sectors and have them review building codes, development patterns in the WUI, and other relevant elements like brush management codes.
That means preventing and reducing the number of homes in the wildland- urban interface, defined as “where houses meet or intermingle with wildland vegetation.”
Fortunately, we already have a solid basis of fire-safe land use policies
that focus on city-centered growth and avoid sprawl. Our Urban Growth Boundaries, community separators and General Plan policies that direct new homes and businesses into cities and towns and away from farm lands and open space put us ahead of many areas of the state.
Strengthen requirements for building and roof materials to be both fire- resistant and green.
Yet we’ve seen, and new research confirms, that building high on forested ridges and canyons is not smart. In fact,
the type of medium-density communities like Fountaingrove and those above Sonoma Valley are the most likely to experience loss of life and home.
during site plan review. Plans should demonstrate where water can be obtained, how defensible space will be maintained, and how residents and firefighters can quickly and
In fact, housing density is more highly correlated with loss of life and home from wildfires than any other factors such as topography, fuel, defensible space and building construction. Researcher Alexandra Syphard presented these and more comprehensive findings on development and wildfire at the Living with Fire Conference at Sonoma State earlier this year. Google her name and you’ll find multiple research papers on the subject.
Encourage or require compact
development away from the WUI through comprehensive plans, area plans, and zoning codes. These strategies protect environmentally sensitive lands and land within the WUI from development pressure.
Specific strategies can include:
Increasing the density of development and redevelopment allowed in or near existing towns and neighborhoods and along transit corridors. Prioritizing infill development.
Promoting mixed uses.
Using transfer of development rights to create incentives to preserve land in wildfire-prone areas and develop in safer areas.
Adopt wildfire hazard or WUI overlay districts with development regulations based on factors like slope hazard, structure hazard, and fuel hazard. Acquire, through outright purchase or an easement, open space between dense forested areas and residential development to help prevent fire from spreading to developed areas.
A Community Protection Zone of open, green space at least 100 to 300 feet wide can separate homes from wildlands.
The risk of wildfire associated
with development in the urban- wildland intermix is nationwide, according to a U.S. Forest Service
report titled Land-Use Planning
May Reduce Fire Damage in the .Urban-Wildland Intermix. This
was written in 1991, nearly 30 years ago!
Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) where houses MEET or INTERMINGLE with wildland vegetation. IMAGE provided by Anu Kramer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Require new developments to submit a fire protection plan
safely get in and out of the development.
12 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 9/18
Teri Shore is the Regional Director, North Bay, Greenbelt Alliance, 555 Fifth Street, Suite 300 A | Santa Rosa, CA 95401
(707) 575-3661 office |tshore@greenbelt.org | http://www.greenbelt.org/
THANK YOU Alexandra D. Syphard, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist Conservation Biology Institute and Anu Kramer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the slide with the map of the Tubbs fire and the WUI.