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Planning magazine — June 1995 Burn, California, Burn Pessimists view the start of another dry season with trepidation. By William Fulton In June 1990, during a hot and very dry Southern California summer, a brush fire swept across almost 5,000 acres of coastal hillsides, destroying more than 600 houses, most of them in the affluent Painted Cave area just outside Santa Barbara. At the time, the Painted Cave fire was described as the worst
in California history. But it turned out to be only the beginning of a devastating
series of conflagrations, triggered in part by a drought that began in 1987.
Just over a year later, a far larger fire, covering about 1,600 acres, decimated
entire neighborhoods in the hills of Oakland and Berkeley, killing 25 people,
destroying 2,900 houses, and leaving more than $1.5 billion in property damage. One might be tempted to attribute all this destruction to bad luck. After all, California has had more than its share lately — not just the fires, but earthquakes in 1989 and 1994 and statewide floods last winter. But there is more to the fire problem than just bad luck. The real cause As California continues to grow (the population is now 32 million), more and more people are living in the state's pretty, forested areas — and thereby increasing the risk of damage from wildland fire. Today, more than six million people live within California's wildland areas. Another three to four million live on what firefighters call the "urban/wildland fire interface" — the perimeter of urban areas adjacent to wildlands. The results are evident from the statistics supplied by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Since 1980, more than 5,000 structures have been damaged in wildland fires. That's triple the amount of damage that occurred in the previous 15-year period. The month of June is the beginning of the fire season in California, a period that generally lasts until November. And the prospects are good that a fire or fires will once again make big headlines throughout the country. Among the areas that are most vulnerable are the hillsides of the San Francisco Bay Area and the scenic canyons of metropolitan Los Angeles. An equally hazardous situation is presented by the new subdivisions being built for urban escapees in the wooded western foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Local planning officials throughout the state say that recent decisions in "takings cases" make it hard for them to flat out deny permission to build. "It is quite evident," says Robert Irwin, a fire management consultant and former Tuolumne County planning commissioner, "that fire and local planning have been, and still are, on a collision course." The problem is most evident in rebuilding efforts in areas that have already been devastated where political pressure has resulted in speedy approvals. Build first, plan later From Oakland to Malibu to Laguna Beach, local officials have expedited the rebuilding process in order to help families that have been burned out of their homes. "The city had a very aggressive, proactive policy," says Kyle Butterwick, community development director of Laguna Beach, which lost almost 300 houses in the 1993 Southern California fires. "We had a team of consultants in here as essentially plan checkers. We've had a five-day turnaround for the last 17 months." The city of Malibu has already approved reconstruction of 225 out of 268 houses lost in the 1993 fires, although actual rebuilding has been slower because of disputes with insurance companies and other problems. In most cases, property owners have been permitted to build a similar-sized house (usually up to a 10 percent increase in square footage) without going through a discretionary review process. And, while the new houses have been held to tighter fire safety standards, the communities' overall development patterns are doing nothing to lessen the risk of fire. In the Oakland hills, for example, the houses rebuilt after the 1991 fire are required to have Class A fire-retardant roofs, stucco outer walls, and appropriate vegetation. Wood decks are permitted but the planks must be at least two inches thick, and fire-blocking material such as sheetrock is required where the deck meets the house. In addition, all hillside home-owners — even those whose houses didn't burn — are now subject to a $75-a-year assessment to help enforce vegetation rules and maintain fire patrols. Yet, by and large, the neighborhoods are pretty much the same as they were before the fire. The narrow, winding roads that give the area much of its charm — but contributed to many deaths — have not generally been widened or rerouted. Doing so would have knocked out most of the building lots in the burned-out areas, and would have added $6,000 to $10,000 per lot and slowed down the permit process. Instead, the city has banned on-street parking in the area, apparently the best solution under the circumstances. Oakland's experience highlights the conflicts facing planners after a disaster. Simply put, the pressure to rebuild often outweighs the pressure to replan. According to planning consultant Kenneth Topping, AICP, of Pasadena, who is working on an APA Planning Advisory Service study of disaster planning, the Oakland-Berkeley hills have burned 14 times in the last 70 years, with seven fires, including the recent one, originating in essentially the same canyon area. As an example, Topping points to the Buckingham Road neighborhood, where 37 houses were destroyed by fire in 1970. They were rebuilt, only to be destroyed again in 1991. The pressure to rebuild regardless of safety considerations is a "global phenomenon,' says Topping. He notes that Kobe, Japan, is now going through the same cycle after its earthquake. Political support for tougher standards (such as wider streets) is initially strong, but it is eroded over time by growing sympathy for the homeless victims. (A former Los Angeles planning director, Topping grew up in Japan and has long been regarded as an expert on earthquake planning.) A model code As part of the APA project, which was commissioned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Topping has been drafting a model "recovery and reconstruction" ordinance, to be used after a natural disaster such as a fire. In the ordinance, Topping acknowledges that political pressure to rebuild quickly and without modification is the single most vexing problem facing planners after a disaster. As a means of "buying time," the model code proposes granting the city manager preapproved powers to impose a development moratorium subject to city council ratification. The code tries to strike middle ground on the issue of rebuilding nonconforming uses — allowing reconstruction but holding the line on structural, plumbing, and electrical requirements, which can reduce the likelihood of a hazard. In Oakland and elsewhere, the rebuilding effort has been driven less by fire planning concerns than by potential liability problems, insurance reimbursement rules, and the political influence of affluent homeowners determined to recapture — or even expand upon — the lifestyle they had before the fire hit. The situation is slightly different in rural counties where wildland fire experts often sit on subdivision review panels. The California forestry department has contracts to serve as the local fire department in 31 rural counties. In those areas, local forestry department chiefs work closely with planning and public works directors to make sure that new subdivisions comply with state regulations requiring fire safety in hazardous areas. Among them: minimum road width, a second road to provide emergency egress from rural subdivisions, and adequate water supplies. The firelighters The recent fires have focused attention on the state's firefighting apparatus, particularly the training academy run by the state forestry department. The academy is housed in a modest set of structures located between an old reform school and a state prison in Amador County, a sparsely populated area in the Sierra Nevada foothills an hour from Sacramento. The corridors of the main building are lined with plaques commemorating firefighters who died in the line of duty. Out back are several concrete structures that are regularly set on fire for training purposes. In the mess hall or the lounge you'll often find an eager group of trainees going through the agency's extensive firefighting program. With almost 647 fire stations, 150 battalions, 4,000 permanent employees, and 1,500 seasonal workers, the forestry department is the largest state firefighting organization in the country. It's responsible for fighting and preventing fires in 33 million acres of California's wildlands and serves as £ the local fire department in 31 counties. The agency is renowned for its paramilitary discipline. For most of its history, the state forestry department merely fought fires. Laws emphasizing prevention have been on the books since the 1960s, but only within the last five years has prevention become one of the agency's high priorities. Part of the reason is that fire prevention isn't very sexy in comparison to firefighting. "It's a very laborious job trying to push through fire prevention for homeowners," says Robert Irby, the agency's fire prevention engineer. "It's much more glamorous | to be getting bigger engines, air tankers, bulldozers." Legal tools Since the recent rash of wildfires, however, the agency has increasingly relied on a series of state laws that give it leverage over building and land patterns. One law dating back to the 1960s requires homeowners in fire hazard areas to clear vegetation within 30 feet of their houses. Traditionally, this law has been all but ignored. But recently, the agency has promoted and enforced it much more aggressively. And after the 1990 Santa Barbara fire, the state legislature amended the measure to require disclosure of fire risk and the 30-foot clearance requirement when property changes hands. After the Oakland fire, the state also passed a law imposing tougher roofing requirements in high fire zones for both new houses and reroofing jobs. The Bates bill, named for Tom Bates, the Democratic assembly member from Oakland, also requires that high fire hazard areas be mapped, and that county officials adopt specific fire-safe regulations in those areas. But officials at the state forestry and fire protection agency say this process is moving slowly. A third state law, passed in 1987, has proved to be the agency's ticket into the world of land-use planning. Public Resources Code section 4290 — or simply "4290" — required the state Board of Forestry to establish "fire-safe" regulations for local subdivision review. The regulations, which deal with such issues as road standards and water requirements, were not adopted until 1991, when the Santa Barbara and Oakland fires were big news. But now, state fire marshals and battalion chiefs have a set of standards that local planners must pay attention to in reviewing new subdivisions. Knock, knock Getting the attention of local planners and elected officials on fire issues has sometimes proved difficult. One reason is that they are not used to dealing with fires, especially wildfires, as a planning issue. "Most planners have an urban bias,' says Irwin, the fire expert and former county planning commissioner. "That's all that's taught in planning school." In a recent report for the state, Irwin suggested that the forestry department and its on-the-ground officers become more involved in drawing up local general plans. Another problem is the competing demands that planners face. In fast-growing Riverside County, for example, where urban development has been rapidly encroaching into high-hazard wildland areas, environmental protection gets highest priority. Thus, while the state fire-safety law calls for clearing away vegetation around houses, the federal Endangered Species Act prohibits disturbing certain natural habitats, particularly that of the Stephens kangaroo rat, an officially listed endangered species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded after the 1993 Southern California fires that species protection had not in fact been a contributing factor. Nevertheless, it has since loosened its requirements for maintaining natural areas around residences. Fueling the fire Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to making fire prevention a primary land-use concern in California is the political pressure to allow development in fire-prone scenic areas. For example, the wooded Sierra foothill counties, which don't have a strong tax base, welcome retirees from the Bay Area and Los Angeles. And Calaveras County, site of some of the 1992 fires, is among the fastest-growing counties in the state. "We can't keep putting people out in the middle of brushy areas," says Bev Shane, planning director of Tuolumne County, which suffered a 140,000-acre brush fire in 1987. "But we can't not let them build, either," she adds, especially if property owners already have a building lot. As a result, local planners tend to focus on mitigation measures, such as wider roads, firebreaks, and adequate water supply. Increasingly, however, areas that have suffered from fires are beginning to work fire safety into their general plans. Tuolumne County is getting the help of the state department of forestry and fire protection to upgrade the safety standards in its plan. And Calabasas, a small town near the Santa Monica Mountains where the Malibu fire started, recently decided to include a fire management element in its new general plan. Not enough But including fire standards in general plans and subdivision regulations is not enough to prevent the devastation of a major fire. The fact is that 32 million Californians live in a tinderbox. And with a half-million more per year on the way, it's impossible to change the situation — unless public officials and the voters who elect them decide they're willing to pass regulations that would keep people from building in the woods. William Fulton is a contributing editor of Planning and the publisher of California Planning & Development Report.
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