A fire Thursday night burned two acres in an open plot near R.O.
Hardin Elementary School and came within about 25 feet of several
homes’ back yards before crews fully extinguished it, while
neighborhood residents have become increasingly concerned about the
potential danger with a blaze cropping up just about once a year in
the weed-infested area.
HOLLISTER
A fire Thursday night burned two acres in an open plot near R.O. Hardin Elementary School and came within about 25 feet of several homes’ back yards before crews fully extinguished it, while neighborhood residents have become increasingly concerned about the potential danger with a blaze cropping up just about once a year in the weed-infested area.
The fire started about 6 p.m. Thursday on the dry, open plot heavily infested by weeds. Crews controlled the blaze before it reached homes in the nearby subdivision and had it put out in about two hours. The investigation has continued, but officials suspect it may have been a group of kids who caused the blaze, Fire Chief Fred Cheshire said.
Carlos Miranda’s family lives next to the plot, and the 12-year-old boy said he was one of the first people to see the fire when he had been riding his bike around the neighborhood.
“Something exploded,” he said, pointing to the charred area with a family member at his side, while noting he had not seen anyone around there.
Cheshire remarked how a fire in that spot carries a high risk – despite crews’ success in controlling the spread – for potentially reaching the nearby structures.
“All of the homes on Powell Street and A Street have the potential to take some damage because some of those homes have wood roofs,” Cheshire said, adding how embers easily can fly onto those buildings.
Regarding that particular track of land, he said, “Just that whole area, I would say there’s an incident there pretty much every year.”
The fire chief pointed out how the city each spring conducts a weed abatement program in which it tracks the worst offenders and allows property owners to either clean up the messes or pay for them when the city hires a contractor to do the work. This particular plot east of the school, despite being surrounded by city property, falls into county jurisdiction. Hollister officials, therefore, lack authority to force the abatement.
“The city has a weed abatement program, but it’s for city lots, and that’s a county lot,” the chief said.
Cheshire said he believes that county plot, because it’s surrounded by the city, should be annexed into Hollister.
In the meantime, though, the responsibility for such weed abatement within county jurisdiction falls with its code enforcement division, in the planning department. Planning Director Art Henriques pointed out that San Benito has just one code enforcement officer for the entire county and she spends 40 percent of her time addressing abandoned vehicles. He acknowledged the county does not have a routine weed abatement program as the city does, and that most responses are “complaint driven.”
The topic of reducing the aggregate of “infill” – property within county lines that is essentially surrounded by land within city limits – has come up through the years among officials. Henriques said the “challenge,” however, is figuring out where it fits on officials’ priority list.
“It’s been important,” he said. “It hasn’t been at the top end of our priority list. It’s on the board so to speak, on the radar.”
See the full story in the Free Lance on Tuesday.
