Region confronts danger
Sonoma County struggles with reality: There will be more blazes
Sonoma County burned before, and it can burn again. In fact, it’s almost sure to.
Tens of thousands of wildland acres went up in flames in the October wildfires that swept into Santa Rosa, killing 25 people and destroying more than 5,000 homes. But throughout Sonoma County are cities and towns bordered by unscathed hillsides. In those places, there’s exactly the same type of fuel that fed the Tubbs Fire and other big blazes: Dead trees. Vegetation that hasn’t been thinned in years. Homes where there used to be open space.
And in Santa Rosa, the county seat, are officials who see a need to rethink fire management strategies that have fallen behind the times.
“Absolutely, without a doubt, we will see another fire here again,” said Supervisor Lynda Hopkins. “You look at history ... and all of the documents that predicted last fall’s fire in the east county. There are risks in the west county, too. We need to be prepared.”
Hopkins and others point to what happened the year after the Hanly Fire of September 1964, which torched 53,000
acres and leveled 108 dwellings east of Santa Rosa.
The following September, another rash of fires broke out in the North Bay. One blackened 7,000 acres east of Jenner, and another burned near Bodega Bay. A blaze burned 16,000 acres west of Napa. Part of Petaluma was evacuated one night, and 15 buildings were destroyed. Flames from another blaze burned just east of Rohnert Park.
Altogether, 275 blazes burned across 225,000 acres in 15 counties that September in 1965. Officials called it the “worst autumn holocaust in California for 40 years.”
“People should be very concerned,” said Marshall Turbeville, a battalion chief for the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, who works the western part of Sonoma County. “We always talk about the Hanly Fire. But there was another fire after that, and it was worse. We need to figure out how to work with private landowners to reduce losses and not replicate history.”
Cities like Windsor and Healdsburg, a few miles up Highway 101 from Santa Rosa, and coastal enclaves such as Timber Cove and Bodega Bay are at risk, according to Cal Fire officials. Near those communities, dead oak trees and highly flammable eucalyptus dot the ridges, and vegetation chokes the ground.
Before the October firestorm, the county had few ordinances requiring landowners to thin flammable vegetation near their homes. That has not changed.
“Realistically, the county didn’t do any vegetation management pre-fires,” said Board of Supervisors President James Gore. “It’s very rare that a county moves heavy-handed on those kinds of policies throughout the state. It’s a tragedy of the commons. Until there is reason to, no one forces people to clean up their lands.”
County rules dictate how homes in fire zones should be built, requiring structures to have fire-retardant roofing and decking, among other things. However, the county does not outline rules for defensible space or vegetation management in many rural areas.
Gore and Hopkins are proposing an ordinance that would compel landowners in rural areas to clear vegetation within 30 feet of structures, similar to a requirement Oakland put in place after the 1991 firestorm in the city’s hills that killed 25 people and destroyed more than 3,000 residences. Pilot programs for such defensible spaces are already in place in identified fire threat zones like Fitch Mountain, a tiny community near Healdsburg, and in the Mayacamas Mountains above Glen Ellen.
Currently, Sonoma County does controlled burns on its public lands — but those account for only about 5 percent of the county. The rest is privately owned, with little vegetation management from local government.
“If I had a conversation about vegetation management before the fire, people would’ve said, ‘Do not bring the government into my backyard,’ ” Gore said. “Now what I hear from people is that they think it’s important, too. They’re taking it seriously now.”
It’s a conversation that is also happening at the state level, with fire officials calling blazes like the Tubbs Fire the new normal.
“If you look at the last several years, the size and scope of fire events are only getting worse,” said Democratic state Sen. Mike McGuire of Healdsburg. “We have 21st century challenges that are trying to be solved with 20th century solutions. We need preventative strategy, not reactive strategy.”
In January’s State of the State address, Gov. Jerry Brown committed to creating a task force of scientists and environmentalists to study managing wildfire threats.
“We have to be ready with the necessary firefighting capability and communication systems to warn residents of impending danger,” Brown said. “We also have to manage our forests and soils much more intelligently.”
Brown’s proposed budget for this year includes $200 million for forest health and restoration, plus fire-prevention grants that would go to places like Sonoma County for weed abatement, controlled burns and fire-fuel ordinances.
“There are a lot of folks who thought wildfires would never be a threat to them,” said Mark Heine, fire chief of the Rincon Valley and Windsor Fire Protection District. “If there’s anyone in Sonoma County today that doesn’t believe that they live in a wildland threat zone, then they are sorely mistaken. There’s history of fire here all around us.”
But landowners need more incentives to reduce fire risks, McGuire said. Funneling money into fire-threatened communities works only if they are open to using it in ways that may impose on private-property owners, he said.
“We need to be more aggressive,” he said. “Counties need to update their weed-abatement and fuel-abatement ordinances to meet the demands of this new reality. The risks exist in almost every corner of the state.”
That reality is no more clear than in Fitch Mountain near Healdsburg, a community of 339 houses tucked amid thick strands of California bay laurel and Douglas fir trees.
“Many of the people up here have a hermit mentality, said David Henderson, president of the Fitch Mountain Association residents group. “They’ve come here for generations, and they love the trees. But they’re a hazard. Somehow, people think we are in a magical zone that will never have fire. We are still known as the firebox of the county and the doorway to Healdsburg.”
The community created its own wildfire protection plan last year, similar to what Gore is proposing for the county. Under it, each lot is inspected for fire fuels, which residents are then required to clear. But the county has not budgeted any money for the program, so technically there is no way to enforce the rules.
“If this place ever goes up ...” Henderson said, trailing off. “Well, then it would get down the mountain, and Healdsburg would be gone.”
As small as it is, such a program is a start, Gore said. Driving on some county roads still gives him “the willies.” The overgrown weeds, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. lines through the trees, the narrow roads — if a fire were to come, it would all go up quickly.
“The only way to prepare for another fire is to change our way of doing business,” Gore said. “We can’t take five fire seasons to do it.”
“Realistically, the county didn’t do any vegetation management pre-fires. ... It’s a tragedy of the commons. Until there is reason to, no one forces people to clean up their lands.” James Gore, president of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors