Officials say now is the time to make homes, property fire
safe
With the annual backyard burn season expiring this week and fire
season around the corner, officials are reminding San Benito County
residents to make their homes and property fire safe.
Officials say now is the time to make homes, property fire safe
With the annual backyard burn season expiring this week and fire season around the corner, officials are reminding San Benito County residents to make their homes and property fire safe.
“Fire season officially starts when the director of CalFire determines that based on conditions throughout the state,” said Captain James Dellamonica, San Benito County’s fire marshal. “Right now we have an early summer and the hills are already turning brown. This station chased three grass fires [last] weekend.”
Occasional rain is not always enough to delay fires, particularly in rural areas.
“People get overconfident when we’ve had a little rain,” Dellamonica said. “It takes a lot of rain to change the fuel moistures. You may see a little green coming out on top [in wild lands] but there’s still dead stuff underneath.”
Residential burning permits expired this week in San Benito, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. From now through Nov. 30, backyard and so-called development burning are not allowed. Backyard burning is a fire to dispose of dry vegetation grown in the yard of a single- or two-family residence, according to the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District. Development burns are fires to dispose of dry vegetation cleared from commercial or residential developments.
Such burns are prohibited during the summer and fall months because of increased air pollution and higher fire danger. Burning vegetation emits carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and hydrocarbons into the air. Some of those pollutants combine to form ozone and smog and also can cause or aggravate various health problems.
The burn season restriction does not prohibit agricultural burning, recreational and ceremonial fires or the use of in-home fireplaces and wood stoves or outdoor barbecues, according to air pollution control district officials.
Fire officials are particularly concerned that there is a lot of fuel for blazes this year.
“We have a heck of a grass crop going right now,” Dellamonica said, noting the importance of CalFire’s public outreach, in which they encourage property owners to maintain a defensible fire space around their homes and other structures.
Homeowners are encouraged to create a minimum 100-foot defensible space to get the flammable fuels and other vegetation away from a structure, which could prevent flames from spreading.
“The secondary reason is that it gives us an area for us to get between your house and the fire,” Dellamonica said.
While much of the county is rural and subject to the 100-foot recommendation, in residential subdivision areas, officials are encouraging homeowners to clean their gutters, clean leaves off their roofs, create 10 feet of clearance between a chimney and any trees and to install a mesh screen/spark arrester over chimneys. So-called ladder fuels, such as two-foot-tall dry grass that is near a four-foot bush that is under low-hanging tree limbs, can cause a fire to spread from the ground to a structure.
“The defensible space idea is to have breaks in there,” Dellamonica said. “We don’t expect people to go down to barren dirt around their property. We want them to have a fire-safe landscaping plan. If you have clusters of shrubbery, that’s OK. Just thin them out so they are not touching.”
The CalFire station at 1979 Fairview Road, just south of Sunnyslope Road, will provide information and free handouts about fire safety to anyone who requests it.
The San Benito County Fire Safe Council, a nonprofit coalition of public and private organizations, meets monthly to promote awareness about fire prevention.
At this month’s meeting, San Benito-Monterey Unit CalFire Captain Catey Trenner said common sense is one of the best ways to prevent fires.
“People clearing brush need to do so in the morning hours when it’s cool and make sure that they have a spark arrester on equipment,” she said.
How this fire season shapes up will depend a lot on the frequency of “starts” – or methods by which fires get going – such as dry lightning, sparks caused when mowers hit rocks, or someone being careless with flames.
“Kids playing with matches; people burning things when they are not supposed to; we try to do a lot of public education to heighten awareness about fire dangers,” she said.
CalFire’s seasonal crews are coming back on the job and receiving refresher training this week, Trenner said. The fire agency will be staffing engines with a minimum of three personnel in five area stations starting Monday, May 4: Bear Valley, Hollister, Carmel Hill, King City and Bradley.
These two-engine stations will add more staff for their second engines as the fire season progresses. CalFire officials are reluctant to predict the severity of the upcoming fire season, though they remain cautious in light of last year’s devastating blazes in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
“Last season’s fire season was worse than the year before,” he said. “We started fighting grass fires last season in April and May. Santa Cruz County for me is a pretty good gauge because it never really has had that many fires. They had four large fires during last April and May.”
The Bureau of Land Management begins its fire restrictions on May 15, meaning that gates on BLM land in southern San Benito County and elsewhere will be off-limits to vehicles. Visitors still can gain access to the land by foot to hike, stargaze or bird watch.
San Benito County Supervisor Anthony Botelho, a former firefighter, called the Fire Safe Council “a very important committee.”
“It’s unfortunate that the county just doesn’t have the resources to have the staffing or stations everywhere they are needed, but that’s why it’s good that we’re doing this education for the public,” he said.
The San Benito Fire Safe Council meets at 10 a.m. on the fourth Wednesday of every month at Hollister Fire Station #2 at the corner of Union Road and Airline Hwy. New members are welcomed to join the group or attend the meetings. For more information, call Cindy Reeves at 623-1677; e-mail
sb***@ga****.com
; or go to www.sbfsc.org.
Make Your Home Fire-Safe
– Create a defensible space of 100 feet around your home; if there is less than 100 feet around your home, the defensible space should reach to the property line
– Post your house address so it is easily visible from the street, especially at night
– Clear flammable vegetation at least 10 feet from roads and 5 feet from driveways
– Install a fire-resistant roof
– Remove dead branches over-hanging your roof and keep branches at least 10 feet from a chimney
– Install a spark-arrester on chimneys
– Stack wood piles at least 30 feet from all structures and remove vegetation within 10 foot of wood piles
– Remove all stacks of construction materials, pine needles, leaves and other debris from your yard
– Keep a working fire extinguisher in the kitchen and mount one in the garage
– Turn the handles of pots and pans away from the front of the stove
– Install a screen in front of a fireplace or wood stove
– Install smoke detectors between living and sleeping areas
– Test smoke detectors monthly
– Disconnect electrical tools and appliances when not in use
– Properly store flammable liquids in approved containers and away from ignition sources such as pilot lights
SOURCE: CalFire (www.fire.ca.gov)
