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Fuel Management Plan Structures and Perhaps Lives

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Fuel Management Plan Structures and Perhaps Lives A Quarterly Newspaper for The Sea Ranch Association Members No. 72 Spring, 2002 Inside This Issue: Pete Mattson. landscape is designed to burn. Until we manage it, we will continue to lose LEVEL OF RISK · Fuel Management Plan structures and perhaps lives. Fuel types UNACCEPTABLE · Sea Ranchers of Year: Halprin, affect the speed with which fire moves Sylvia Levin said, “The wildland interface and the intensity of the burn. Light · Unit 24 Party – May 18 issue is not isolated to Sea Ranch, it is fuels like grass burn faster than heavy · CEP to Be Updated a nationwide problem as people move fuels like wood. Dense fuels burn · Lines From the Library away from the city and into the hotter but slower than sparse · Fire Department Picnics a country. We live by a philosophy which vegetation. For example, a fire will Tradition by definition requires balancing burn fast but not very hot on a hillside · New Engine Arrives competing ideas. What is acceptable that has been grazed and the fuel is · Gualala River Water Export on risk? I would argue that the level of sparse, so it’s easy to intercept. risk we live under is unacceptable. We Tap? The continuity of fuels determines the need to understand the nature of the · 2000 Census Describes Sea rate of spread. All fuel management wildfire threat, the scope of the fuel Ranchers plans intend to break up the continuity issue, and what to expect from the Fire · Restaurants: Sizzling Tandoor of fuels so that there is not vegetation Department. You need to know what · Elaine Jacob Gives to Community transmission capability, not solid you can do to protect your home.” · TSR Archives Get Home canopy, nor solid grasslands that carry · Flora in the Forest FIRE VARIABLES the fire from one point to another. · Soroptimist Tour and Tasting CLIMATE Levin said, “A fire burns twice: once · New Owners: Save the Date! on the ground and once in the air. The spread of wildfire is influenced by When the fire is on the ground there is Fuel Management Plan three things: weather, fuel, and terrain. a good chance of stopping it. If it gets The most important variable is “The greatest fire threat we have into the air, there’s no stopping it until weather. In this coastal climate, is not structure fire, it is wildfire ,” the weather changes.” prevailing winds drive fires to the said Chief Dan Levin of The Sea southeast but unstable conditions yield TERRAIN Ranch Fire Department. He was part erratic fire behavior. Wind direction of a panel at the Midwinter Meeting on The steeper the slope, the more the directly affects humidity – wind coming February 16, 2002, as they informed fuels above the fire are preheated, so out of the northwest raises humidity members about The Sea Ranch Fuel terrain is an important determinative of while wind from the northeast brings Management Plan. Along with Levin, fire behavior. The direction a slope very, very dry air. When that happens the panel included Carol Rice, Fire faces determines how much moisture on Sea Ranch, humidity has been Ecologist and consultant for Leonard there is in a fuel: a north-facing slope is reported as low as nine percent and the Charles and Associates; Bill much wetter than a south-facing slope. firefighters instinctively keep their Wiemeyer, TSRA Director of Design Geographical features such as boots on, ready to roll. Review and Environmental chimneys, draws and box canyons act Management; Bill Chapman, TSRA FUEL as flues drawing fire upward. Director of Facilities and Resources; “Some people call it vegetation, others There is rapid transition of wildland and members of the Board of call it biomass, firefighters call it fuel,” fires in meadows because there are Directors, Roy Austin, Alex Long and said Levin. California’s unmanaged heavy, decadent fuels; fire will move 1 ————————–— The Sea Ranch Soundings — Spring, 2002 THE SEA RANCH SOUNDINGS faster on grassy hillsides; slower but protected. “That’s it,” warned Levin, PLAN AVAILABLE hotter in the forested hillsides; and “If the fire threatens more than 10 in Carol Rice presented the elements of when it gets up on the mixed ridges and the first hour, we’re going to lose the the Plan (see SOUNDINGS, Winter ridgetops, it will tend to slow down and rest of them. We have to choose which 2001) with slide illustrations of areas of still look for a place to burn. It may structures we can save, and our the Ranch where the Plan will be burn back down the hill if the wind primary criterion is the likelihood of applied. She displayed a map of Sea changes or over on the other side if the success. That has to do with clearance Ranch delineating grazing areas, wind stays the same. The deep- around the structures both on the roadside fuelbreaks, reduced fuel forested hillsides are actually pretty property and on Commons, and the zones, downslope calming zones, safe as long as the wind does not come likelihood we’re going to be able to put riparian planting zones, and drainage out of the northeast as it did in 1946 firefighters in there safely and they will way conifer removal areas. A when a wildfire burned from Point be able to divert the fire around that summary of the Plan is being prepared Arena to Gualala. building. If we think there is a risk for every member of TSRA. The full because it’s too overgrown, we’re not LIMITED FIRE RESOURCES Plan will be available to read at the going in there. There’s no house that’s Association office. The Fire Department has four fire worth the loss of anybody’s life.” engines, and – assuming they are all IMPACTS available – they all will respond to any REGULATIONS Bill Weimeyer stated, “The Fuel reported fire on Sea Ranch during fire State law PRC 4291 requires a Management Plan is not without season. That constitutes 25, maybe 27 minimum 30-foot clearance to create impacts.” Emphasis will be on work on or 28 firefighters. “That’s all we’ve defensible space around a structure so private lots vs. work on Commons got.” In the first hour of a fire, the that firefighters can make a stand where the current Plan was focused. community can expect four fire engines safely. The regulations allow 100 feet. There will be changes in landscape within 10 minutes, mutual aid will bring Members can expect stricter character: forest, grassland and coastal two more engines and a water tender enforcement of state regulations, more scrub. Grazing will change the within 15 minutes, the first helicopter or restrictive fire-safe standards on new character of existing meadows. air tanker within 20 minutes, and up to construction. “Until the fire loss starts Weimeyer said there will be an attempt five air tankers and two helicopters – to go down, the regulations are going to to avoid critical habitat and to protect depending on whether there are other increase. I think we’re going to see a habitat values and natural resources. fires outside the area – within 20 sprinkler requirement within the year For example, scrub management will minutes. Assuming they are all on all new construction and more take place after the nesting season for available. After the first hour, the regulations on building materials and birds, which is mostly between March secondary engines start coming in from distances from structures.” and the end of July. Some privacy out of the area, dozers are about an Levin spoke to people in the meadows screening will be lost. Debris removal hour-and-a-half away, and the first who might be reluctant to pay for the will involve smoke management and gang crews are about two hours away. Fire Management Plan. “There’s a few noise. “So we have about an hour to work people down on Yardarm Drive who with six fire engines and two THE PROCESS can tell you what happens when a fire helicopters.” burns on the hillside, because it burns The staff will prepare individual STRUCTURE PROTECTION right back to the meadow. Meadows neighborhood plans and notify are not immune from wildland fires.” neighbors through the Bulletin, giving In a wildland fire, the first thing Levin is particularly concerned about them an opportunity to meet with staff. firefighters do is save lives and protect fuel density on major ingress and Where the plans affect common areas, structures. But it must be understood egress roads. “If we have a wildfire neighbors within 300 feet will receive a that protecting structures diverts this summer anything like the Yardarm mailer with a map. Showcase areas resources from fighting fires so the fire fire, we will lose houses and I hope we will be developed on a few private lots is going to grow. Each fire engine can won’t lose lives. But people will be to demonstrate what kind of work will protect two houses. With maybe five trapped – I can guarantee it.” be done in various landscape types. fire engines, only 10 houses can be Neighborhood workshops will be held 2 ——————–——— The Sea Ranch Soundings — Spring, 2002 THE SEA RANCH SOUNDINGS to discuss the kinds of things the riparian zone planting and drainage way remarkably fitting choice for this year’s Association will be doing in that conifer removal will be done. Also, in SEA RANCH AWARD. TSRA neighborhood. the fourth year, the ongoing recognizes two of the giants whose maintenance of the Plan will work profoundly influenced this IMPLEMENTATION commence with reentry into the areas community over the last half-century.
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