9222 Lake Canyon Road Santee, CA 92071 February 3, 2014 Mr. Kevin Canning OC Public Works/OC Planning 300 N. Flower Street, POB 4048 Santa Ana, CA 92702-4048 RE: Esperanza Hills Project (Sch# 2012121071) DEIR #616 Dear Mr. Canning, Please consider the following expert comments upon the Esperanza Hills Project EIR related to the Public Safety impacts of the Project.1 The Project as currently proposed has significant adverse fire safety impacts that are not adequately mitigated to a level of insignificance. Fire and Land Use experts have stated that we need to stop expanding the wildland- urban-interface within the most hazardous fire vulnerable topography. “Preventing homes from being built in rugged fire prone zones should be a priority. Right now, the focus has been on clearing a defensible space around homes. It's becoming real clear that that's not going to solve our problem." 2 Dr. Jon Keeley Unfortunately, the Esperanza Hills Project would continue the practice of building within extremely hazardous sites, while attempting to justify the significant public safety impacts of doing so by applying various design features. Developers have spawned a whole new industry often composed of former fire officials utilized to design “Fire Protection Plans”. At too many potential project sites, those employed profit by creating rationalizations that provide developers and decision-makers with a false sense of confidence while placing the pubic at significant risk. The Project is located entirely within a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone (VHFHSZ). Fire history makes clear that it is not a question of if a major firestorm will occur, but when the next firestorm will occur. 1 Van Collinsworth is a Natural Resource Geographer and former US-Forest Service Wildland Firefighter. Collinsworth has reviewed environmental documents during the last 20 years (including Fire Protection Plans) and provided expert depositions to the courts in regard to these documents. Resume Attached. 2 “San Diego’s Fire Readiness Called into Question” Fox 6 News fire forum coverage, November 27, 2007. The “Esperanza Hills Fire Protection & Emergency Evacuation Plan” (FPEEP) fundamental contradiction resides within the title itself. If the homes were not susceptible to combustion, there would not be a need for a fire evacuation plan. The FPEEP acknowledges the Project’s vulnerability to fire by attempting to address the need for evacuation. “However, during extreme fire conditions, there are no guarantees that a given structure will not burn… wildfires may occur in the area that could damage property or harm persons… the proposed project… should not be considered a shelter-in-place site… Accordingly, evacuation of the site and the area should occur…”3 “This FPEP doe not provide a guarantee that all residents and visitors or community members will be safe at all times… The system of fire protection features must be properly maintained for it to function as designed. Even then, fire can compromise the fire protection features through various, unpredictable ways.”4 The FPEEP acknowledges that during San Diego County’s Cedar and Witch Creek Fires, that homes built with the most recent codes at the time were lost.5 Its declaration that the homes represented a small percentage of the homes lost is misleading because it fails to mention that homes built with those standards were also a smaller total of the homes threatened. There needs to be an “apple to apples” comparison with a better understanding of the touted improvements so that the potential fire resistance gains are not overestimated and used to rationalize placing people and structures within even higher risk topography. Fire Safety Impacts for the site are considered significant at the following thresholds.6 “Expose people or structures to a significant risk of loss, injury or death involving wildland fires, including where wildlands are adjacent to urbanized areas or where residences are intermixed with wildlands.” “Impair Implementation of or physically interfere with an adopted emergency response plan or emergency evacuation plan?” 3 EIR Appendix J, The “Esperanza Hills Fire Protection & Emergency Evacuation Plan” (FPEEP), Page 104 4 EIR Appendix J, The “Esperanza Hills Fire Protection & Emergency Evacuation Plan” (FPEEP), Page 97 5 EIR Appendix J, The “Esperanza Hills Fire Protection & Emergency Evacuation Plan” (FPEEP), Page 2. 6 Esperanza Hills Draft EIR, Chapter 5 – Environmental Setting, Impacts and Mitigation Measures, 5.7 Hazards and Hazardous Materials, Page 5-296. 2 The EIR at Table 5-7-4 acknowledges that control efforts at the fire head are probably ineffective for fires with flame lengths ranging from 4-8 feet and that for flame lengths over 8 feet “control efforts at the head of the fire are ineffective.”7 The EIR further acknowledges that flame lengths for both Summer and Fall fires are expected to exceed eleven feet. Therefore, fires that ignite under extreme weather conditions are likely to spread rapidly and consume all continuous fuels in the path of the fire head. Under firestorm conditions, it is probable that people and structures in the vicinity of the wildland interface will face a significant threat of loss, injury or death (especially at the fire head). The EIR acknowledges: “Evacuation of residents would typically occur during large wildfire events that, due to weather patterns and difficulty in gaining control, could threaten the community… Allowance of adequate time will be a key factor in determining the evacuation time frame so that roads do not become congested.” 8 “Compliance with the OCFA Ready, Set, Go Program requires early evacuation, and the HOA is required to conduct annual training of the project residents regarding evacuation procedures.” 9 “Under extreme weather conditions wildfire may behave aggressively and unpredictably, significantly increasing the area directly affected … Winds associated with extreme weather can carry airborne embers miles ahead of the active fire front, igniting new fires that exponentially accelerate the fire spread rate and proportionally cut down the available time for evacuation.”10 “The City of Yorba Linda has not prepared a Community Evacuation Plan. “11 The EIR acknowledges that there may not be enough time to evacuate the Project12 and without substantiation, the EIR concludes that in the event a wildfire would not 7 Table 5-7-4 Fire Suppression Interpretation, Esperanza Hills Draft EIR, Chapter 5 – Environmental Setting, Impacts and Mitigation Measures, 5.7 Hazards and Hazardous Materials, Page 5-287. 8 EIR, Page 5-317, (bold emphasis added). 9 EIR, Page 5-37, (bold emphasis added). 10 EIR Appendix J, The “Esperanza Hills Fire Protection & Emergency Evacuation Plan” (FPEEP), Page 91 (bold emphasis added). 11 EIR, Page 5-337 12 “If community-wide evacuation… is not possible due to dangerous conditions on area roads that would be used for relocating and may effect residents from older, more vulnerable communities… priority residents (described below) will be instructed to temporarily relocate out of the community or to a neighbor’s home in the interior of 3 allow enough time to safely evacuate the Project, “an on-site relocation alternative to evacuation is included in the emergency evacuation planning.”13 The statement is meaningless in practice because the EIR does not identify dependable “on site relocation alternatives”. The Project is a sprawl subdivision without public structures designed for and designated as entrapment shelters. There is no evidence to indicate that private residents will open their homes during a firestorm to other residents (known or unknown) that flee to their doors in a panic, which is a fundamental assumption of the FPEEP. The EIR bases its finding of insignificance in part upon mitigation that is not feasible: Fire authorities cannot force residents into early evacuation (the City has not even completed a Community Evacuation Plan), nor can they require busy residents to participate in annual training on evacuation procedures. Public safety impacts remain significant. The EIR’s conclusions regarding evacuation and shelter in place lack supporting evidence, are controversial and are contradictory “Residents will know that their homes have been constructed to resist ignition…resulting in orderly evacuation.” “... Evacuation Plan will allow the option for residents to shelter within their homes or in homes not on the direct fire line…”14 If residents are “sheltering” then they are not evacuating “early.” They are sheltering until they are forced not to by fire or they panic. If they are evacuating they may be doing so at the direction of public officials, or they may be utilizing their own unprofessional judgment about timing based upon their own interpretation of the mixed messages regarding sheltering and evacuation. “When communications with authorities are not possible, “residents will utilize situational awareness to … make determination to evacuate or conduct temporary on-site sheltering…”15 Lack of, or mistaken “situational awareness” has cost the lives of many professional firefighters. It is not something feasible to be instilled in the general public. Firestorms create their own weather. The fire head’s direction can change at any time. Fire whirls and fire tornados can transfer deadly convective or radiant heat at the community… evacuation of the community… may require in excess of 1.5 hours… there may be circumstances where less than 1.5-2 hours are available… on-site refuge as a last resort in an emergency wildfire situation.” FPEEP Page 82. 13 EIR, Page 5-318. 14 EIR, Page 5-339 (bold emphasis added). 15 EIR Appendix J, The “Esperanza Hills Fire Protection & Emergency Evacuation Plan” (FPEEP), Page 98 4 any time with little or no warning. Suggesting that people evacuate early, but have the option to stay in place, or can shelter in someone’s home that they don’t even know during an emergency introduces the potential for confusion and panic. It also places those homes where residents have ceiled themselves as much as possible at risk of opening themselves to embers, smoke and heat intrusion at exactly the wrong time if someone else is forced to abandon burning structures to request shelter.