Record-setting winter increased fuel for fire season, demanding more home fireproofing
SANTA ROSA -- Fire departments across the Bay Area say the record-setting wet weather at the beginning of the year is not a reason to take it easy this fire season.
In some ways, all that rain will create more work for residents to protect their homes from fire danger later this year.
"The main thing, my understanding with fire, is the embers, it's not necessarily the flames," said Jake Lehrer, a Santa Rosa resident who designed his home to be hardened against fire risk almost 20 years ago. "If nobody is here, overtime...it will start to grow and burn the house down."
Lehrer knew he was living in a fire-prone area, so he asked the city for help adding features around his property, including a stucco house and a special deck. After the 2017 Tubbs Fire, he added more layers of protection including new vents at the base of the house and a metal roof.
"It's all protecting the house from embers flying," he explained.
The metal roof can block embers from getting under that surface. The home also has a non-venting attic. His deck is sealed in a way to keep embers from spreading so close to his house. While those long-term amenities to his home help, he still clears his property each year, not just trimming grass and weeds but removing dead trees.
The wet start to 2023 does not give him any comfort about the steps he will need to take this spring.
"I would say the main thing is to keep fuel away from your house -- at 30 feet, 50 feet, any fuel," Lehrer said.
Santa Rosa Fire Department Fire Inspector Will Powers says residents need grass and weeds on their property knocked down under four inches ahead of fire season.
"The first thing we're looking at is what's closest to the home," he told KPIX while visiting Lehrer's home. "We're looking at the roof line. This resident here has trimmed this stuff away from the roof line. That is very crucial in creating that defensible safe."
Late-season rain and the large amount of rainfall the region received will contribute to vegetation growth. Clearing fuels and cutting grass to create defensible space will require that vegetation get cut at least twice this year, compared to when drought conditions allow for the grass to only be cut once.
"This is the time when we want residents thinking about the plans they need to make for what could potentially be a long, long summer," said Santa Rosa Fire Division Chief Fire Marshall Paul Lowenthal. "Our community has been through some pretty significant events and are taking things a lot more seriously and it's preventing damage here locally."
Lowenthal said they will likely declare the start of fire season in the beginning of June. Warmer weather happening this week will factor into that decision. Inspections of properties will begin the first and second week of June.
"We definitely were caught off guard in 2017. In 2020, we saw the effects of what measures like the resident here has taken," Lowenthal told KPIX. "It's great to see efforts like this. We still see a lot of homes that still need work done. But for every resident that does work like this, it's one less home that could potentially be damaged or destroyed."
In 2020, there were 1,152 properties impacted by fire in Santa Rosa, but only 30 were destroyed, according to Lowenthal. He says that better prepared residents helped make the difference that fire season. That's why he wants to encourage the public to take important steps now to help them through the summer and fall.
Leaders at Con Fire add that they anticipate a more dangerous fire season will return sooner rather than later after a relative break in recent years. The abundance of vegetation and all the rain during the winter is part of why they are preparing for the worst.
The agency says there will likely be a greater crop of fuel this year and it will eventually dry out, that could lead to a busy and potentially dangerous fire season.
"To me, the rain allows us to have drinking water. It doesn't help with fire," Lehrer said.
More information about wildfire preparedness is available on the Santa Rosa Fire Department website.