SANTA CRUZ COUNTY — Firefighters are urging the public to be vigilant about safe and defensible space around their homes, as winter rains have boosted vegetation growth to dangerous levels and as warmer weather encroaches.
Engineer David Sutherlen of Cal Fire at Corralitos said defensible space, or clearing, should be 100 feet around your house or out buildings. He advised against leaving “fuel ladders” such as piles of firewood, stored wood and unattended grass and brush that can easily spurn a wild land fire into climbing up the “fuel ladder” and spreading into surrounding buildings and trees.
“We ask that you keep your grass very low, like to four-inches,” he said. “Limbs in your trees should be kept 10-feet from the ground.”
Sutherlen said the fire season has already gotten a jump-start in southern California.
“We just had a 10,000-acre grass fire in Fresno as well,” he said. “If you see a fire get started try to put it out with water or by throwing some dirt on it. All fires start out very small. Tamp it out as soon as possible, but don’t take risks. I can’t stress it enough to have all your photos and videos to be put on a thumb drive and make copies and store them somewhere else. I made copies of all my family photos and keep them at my mother’s house; it’s peace of mind.”
Sutherlen said rural residents should be ready to go with an emergency kit in a second’s notice, with a tent, and enough water for two weeks.
He also suggested that people mow their grass before 10 a.m. because later in the day, when things heat up, it is easier for motor blades to hit a rock, create a spark and torch up a wild land fire.
Sutherlen added that it is crucial to regularly clean all the pine needles and leaves off your roof, as these are ingredients that can draw in a wildfire to your home or out-buildings.
“You want to get that extra vegetation cleared away,” Sutherlen said. “Maintain that 100-foot space. You want the firefighters to be there in a safe space. It dramatically increases their ability to save that home. It’s all about ready, set, go.”
California Section 4291 states that “any person that owns, leases, controls, operates, or maintains any building or structure in, upon, or adjoining any mountainous area of forest-covered lands, brush-covered lands, or grass-covered lands, or any land which is covered with flammable material, shall at all times do all the following:
• Maintain around and adjacent to such building or structure, a fire break made by removing and clearing away, for a distance of not less than 30 feet on each side thereof or to the property line, whichever is nearer, all flammable vegetation or other combustible growth. This subdivision does not apply to single specimens of trees, ornamental shrubbery, or similar plants which are used as ground cover, if they do not form a means of rapidly transmitting fire from the native growth to any building or structure.
• Maintain around and adjacent to any such building or structure, additional fire protection or fire break made by removing all brush, flammable vegetation, or combustible growth which is located from 30 feet to 100 feet from such building or structure or to the property line, whichever is nearer, as may be required by the director if he finds that, because of extra hazardous conditions, a fuel break of only 30 feet from such building or structure is not sufficient to provide reasonable fire and life safety. Grass and other vegetation located more than 30 feet and less than 18 inches in height above the ground may be maintained where necessary to stabilize the soil and prevent erosion.
• Remove that portion of any tree, which extends within 10 feet of the outlet of any chimney or stovepipe.
• Maintain any tree adjacent to or overhanging any building free of dead or dying wood.
• Maintain the roof of any structure free of leaves, needles, or other dead vegetative growth.
• Provide and maintain at all times a screen over the outlet of every chimney or stovepipe.”
