Wildfires, Development Planning and Carbon Canyon's Future

As wildfires have been raging through the greater Los Angeles area in recent days, there is renewed discussion about the continuing problem of building homes in and very near wildland areas.

An editorial in yesterday's edition of the Los Angeles Times by Richard Halsey of the California Chaparral Institute takes on the issue of planning for development in the face of the increasing threat of fire.

This follows two recent articles in the same paper about the role of wind in wildfires and on new research concerning Arctic ice melt and increasing high pressure systems that will send rain emanating from systems in the Pacific north and away from our area causing more drought.

Halsey began his piece by noting that, while major wildfires are a natural element of California history and life, "the destruction of our communities is not."  The result is that

Many of the political leaders we elect and planning agencies we depend upon to create safe communities have failed us.  They have allowed developers to build in harm's way, and left firefighters holding the bag.

He continued noting that tough questions need to be asked "about the true cost of expanding the local tax base with new residences in high fire hazard zones."  He lamented "the same conversation over and over again . . . laced with non-sequiturs and focused on outdated, ineffective solutions."

Halsey pointed out that there are many cited reasons for the recent explosion of huge wildfires in forest and wildland areas:  too many dead trees (there are many killed from pest infestations exacerbated by drought); climate change (it does play a major role, but there are fires that can't be blamed on this); and fire policies of suppression that allow for more chaparral to grow, though he noted that's the only way these tough plants grow naturally.

He observed that clearing habitat, such as brush and trees, are a standard planning tool, costing huge sums, but houses still burn anyway.  This policy inspired a recent bill in the House of Representatives calling for more logging in the western United States—a cynical view is that this is an excuse to reintroduce logging as a political ploy rather than represent an attempt to deal with wildfires!

Halsey wrote:

While vegetation management such as fuel breaks and prescribed burns can help during non-extreme fire events, they do little to suppress extreme events . . . we need to protect communities from fires that actually do the damage.

He continued that what this means is to look at fire policies as social, not natural, because building homes in wildland areas introduces the former into the latter and changes the conditions that lead to conflagrations.

Halsey cautioned that:

Planning agencies need to push back against pro-development forces in government, whose willingness to build in known fire corridors borders on criminal neglect.

Then, more locally, stricter fire codes for new developments calling for elements like external sprinklers for eaves and roofs (as is done in Australia, another area hit by frequent wildfires) and retrofitting older structures and more "proper defensible space regulations" are called for.  He wrote that "such policies would cost significantly less than the $9.4 billion [in] wildfire-related claims submitted statewide as of Friday."

Halsey pointed to CalFire, the statewide fire agency, and its policy of addressing vegetation management, rather than looking at protecting property and life.  He noted that the local mountain communities of Big Bear City and Idyllwild have adopted the use of better roofing and venting systems with grants from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA).  Notably, FEMA grants were used for vegetation clearance around neighborhoods in Carbon Canyon, but Halsey would certainly recommend foregoing that for the retrofitting done in those cities.

He concluded by observing that "trees, shrubs, grasses, or homes will all provide the necessary fuel for a wildfire.  It's part of California's story."  He linked wildfires with other natural disasters, suggesting:

As we do with earthquakes and floods, our goals should be to reduce the damage when wildfires arrive, not pretend we can prevent them from happening at all.  That mindset starts at the planning department, not the fire station.

 What this trilogy of pieces in the Times demonstrates is that the risk of wildfire in our region and, specifically in Carbon Canyon, will only increase.  Those of us already living here have to be contend with the consequences and which will only worsen as climactic conditions change and as more housing is built in the area.

As the Hidden Oaks development, proposing 107 houses south of Carbon Canyon Road and across from the 76-unit Hillcrest now being built, and more projects are forthcoming, it is apparent that, while fire supppression and and fighting policies and procedures have been improved in many areas, the intensity and frequency of wildfires have also increased.  Planners need to take this into account and elected officials need to be more educated when confronting the immense lobbying power of groups like the Building Industry Association.

With valleys and plains just about fully developed, the only open areas left to developers are foothill, canyon and mountain areas that are the areas that burn most often and hardest.  Current Canyon residents confront mounting challenges of traffic congestion and fire risk and the need for planners and officials to adequately address these issues is greater as the canyon faces greater risk.