BY MICHAEL S. TERWILLIGER
We watched in awe as home after home was swept away in a sea of fire driven by relentless Santa Ana winds1 through decimated chaparral and timber stands in southern California. It became apparent after a couple of days that this fire situation was poised to take the vaunted place in history as the wildland urban interface (WUI) fire of all time. There are some new dubious benchmarks from this fire series: the most houses burned down in a fire siege, the largest single fire in California history (the Cedar Fire), and the largest movement of mutual-aid equipment for a wildland urban interface fire.
For those of us who have made our career fighting fire in California, names like Cajon Pass, Devore Canyon, Lytle Creek, Topanga, Little Tujunga, Ramona, Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), Malibu, the badlands, and the devil winds are common terms from our past. Now, they are once again being bandied around the fire service on a global basis. It is and was an awful situation considering the loss of civilian and firefighter lives. The rains have come, and the firefighters of southern California have a brief respite from this problem, but keep in mind that the Santa Anas (also known as the devil winds) can blow at any given time, and the hills will burn to the sea. So it has always been and will always be.
What was that? Always has and always will? Yes, indeed, the devil winds have always blown, and fires always burned to the sea south of the Tehachapis. I have pictures of my grandparents in a dry wash, now called Burbank, with large smoke plumes behind them in the hills. I went there as a professional firefighter for the first time in 1972 and have gone there many times since. I have pictures of my Dad at fires in Ramona, Potrero, Julian, and Deluz in the late ’40s and early ’50s. The same brush, the same fires, now more homes in the way. I suppose if an alien spaceship landed and listened to this type of conversation, the aliens might ask us something like this, “If you don’t like all the homes burning, why don’t you stop creating situations that let homes burn?” Not a bad question. I have been asking it all my career, and I will go on record as saying I am as much at fault as everyone else. So let me begin with what I think needs to be done, and at no time do I mean disrespect to those who lost their lives and their property since wildfires started burning homes (photo 1).
 1 (Source unknown.) |
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ACCOUNTABILITY
Let’s talk about accountability right now. There is an attitude in this country that people don’t have to be accountable for their actions. They can kill and say they were high on drugs. They can kill while driving drunk and say they have a disease. The nightclub fire in Rhode Island that killed 100 people is a recent disaster in our business that has served to crystallize the issue. That fire department was pulled through a knothole because the club had some violations, including flammable material on the walls. At what point is it the responsibility of the person who decided to run this type of business that housed bunches of people in a confined space? The owner of this business has total responsibility for all actions that take place between those walls, period. I realize that the owner was shown to have some culpability for this event, but the media’s first approach was to hold fire accountable. It is impossible to inspect all businesses, and the owners/managers just change it back when they see our taillights.
In California, and probably all wildland urban interface fire prone areas, maintaining a clean home ignition zone2 is really a choice made by the owner. Communities have preconstruction guidelines, and if fire has the staff, we do periodic inspections. Regardless of those efforts, the folks who lose homes to wildfires in many cases have made a choice to live like that prior to the fire. Only with extreme concentrated efforts can a fire department have any success in developing defensible space around homes in any consistent manner.
A key aspect of this problem is placing the responsibility where it lies—with the homeowners who have made the choice to live as they do. If you want it to look natural, then it will burn natural is an excellent application. Look at it this way. A firefighter was killed by fire while defending a home. I imagine the home did not have adequate defensible space and was in violation of section 4291 of the Public Resources Code.3 Is the owner of the house going to be held accountable? What is the owner’s defense? If a kid breaks into my home and spills gas from my illegal container, starting a fire that burns him to death, I am held liable for the death because I allowed an illegal situation known to be dangerous to exist on my property. Why is this situation any different? I will answer that question for you. Firefighters are supposed to die in fires, so how can anyone be held accountable? If we don’t start holding people accountable for their actions that injure firefighters, we will never stop the killing of firefighters and the burning of homes in the WUI or, for that matter, the killing of people in nightclubs.
MORE TEETH
The responses to my suggestions will be mixed. One department may have had excellent success in developing defensible space in its community. Unfortunately, that is an anomaly or proves to be incorrect when a fire blows through and destroys homes. The real problem is the inability to effectively deal with those who have made the wrong choice. The problem with choosing to live in a vulnerable fashion is it has the very real potential of affecting others unfavorably. It can place at great risk the firefighters who will try to protect the home as the fire passes or after the fire passes, it ties up resources that could be protecting homes that deserve the service, it increases the time an engine will be assigned to the home because of longer burn-out time,4 and it often will increase the risk to homes where an effort to be defensible had been made by generating excessive radiant heat and flying brands as the homes without defensible space burn down.
Fire departments have a plethora of ordinances and regulations that allow them to force people to clear around homes. But, there are enforcement problems. In many cases, the court system is overwhelmed with crime, and the local district attorneys are not interested in filling the docket with petty crimes such as defensible space citations. Defensible space is dynamic in nature. In my part of the country, the Jeffery Pine trees shed needles twice each year. The needles are an extreme fire threat5 and need to be removed from roofs and property. A person may be compliant in the spring and noncompliant in the fall.
I have a small district, and we have thousands of homes in the WUI. It takes an immense amount of time to inspect each property. There is case law that determines from where we view the property; this can preclude us from inspecting correctly. We normally give folks multiple notices to clear. This is a very labor-intensive operation, not to mention the basic municipal fire department issues we need to deal with and commercial inspections of businesses and high-risk occupancies. I actually worked in an area where you had to have an armed escort to drive down a dirt road to inspect homes because of the drug activities occurring there and the occupants’ desire to keep that activity viable. Unbelievably, this area actually experienced a major wildfire in 1992 that destroyed more than 400 homes.6 The same people who resisted inspections raised such a ruckus that a legislative inquiry ensued; the fire service was chastised for allowing this to happen. Getting folks to create defensible space is not that simple. So, what do we do?
Perhaps it is time to treat defensible space as an important topic worthy of aggressive action. I suggest the following:
- Give citations at the misdemeanor level at the time of violation. The fine should be substantial; if it is not paid, the violator should be charged with contempt of court and bench warrants should be issued.
- Develop weed-abatement ordinances funded by the local agency, which will be repaid at the time of notification, or place a lien on the property that would have to be paid at the time the property is sold or put up as collateral for a loan.
Unfortunately, many of the classic WUI areas are rural and protected by small fire departments like mine. We are very close to our constituency, and the old adage of biting the hand that feeds you is readily apparent at the legislative level—definitely a double-edged sword validating that the fire service is not for sissies.
 2 (Photo by author.) |
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INSURANCE INDUSTRY
I assume the insurance industry does not read this magazine, but if it does, I say, “WAKE UP!” Perhaps Southern California will awaken a sleeping bear, so to speak. State Farm has shown an interest in inspecting homes in fire-prone areas and has decided not to write policies in areas that burn on a regular basis. I for one am quite irritated at the loss of homes in the last fire siege because of the choices folks made (photo 2). From past experience, I would venture to say that around 80 percent of the homes lost were lost because the owners made the choice to live like that. The other 20 percent were unlucky because this fire was at the extreme end of the scale of ripsnorters. The problem is that property loss will drive up my insurance costs to cover their poor decisions and bad luck. It can be compared with the loss of homes from hurricanes on the eastern seaboard. How many times do we all need to subsidize homeowners’ decisions to live in these environments? If you want to live five feet from the ocean in hurricane territory, then do so at your own cost. As Mork from “Mork and Mindy” was fond of saying, “Reality, what a concept.”
I am interested in working with insurance companies that offer residential coverage. I am very willing to certify the defensible space of every home in my district on a regular basis. In a bizarre twist in this direction, I am receiving phone calls from people building homes on 20-acre parcels in heavy timber with one-lane dirt roads and no fire flow just outside my district, but we are the only fire service provider. They are angry because they can’t get fire insurance. Remember, these are people who want to live like Daniel Boone in 5,000-square-foot homes and who willingly resist annexation into a fire district or follow commonsense defensible space applications. Yet, they complain. I tell them a lousy decision on their part does not constitute an emergency on my part. The insurance industry is a very powerful tool. I only hope we have burned down enough homes in this last effort to get it interested in holding homeowners accountable for their decisions.
I believe that when the insurance industry wakes up and smells the coffee, we will be on our way. One change still pending is the insurance industry’s willingness to be led down the primrose path by the Insurance Services Office (ISO). The ISO is basically a dysfunctional organization that has had its day, yet the insurance industry still uses the ratings it generates. “Dysfunctional” is a harsh word, but here are two strong examples:
- My district was inspected more than two years ago at my request simply because we had not been inspected since 1989. This is a big deal. We have increased our level of service significantly since 1989. It should make a significant insurance difference for my constituents. The process has been completed for two years, we have staffed another station since the ISO was here, and we are still waiting to see a new rating. We notified the ISO that we have staffed an additional station; it said not to say anything because it will goof up the process.
- The ISO inspection does not consider, of all things, wildfire. Why would an insurance company accept a fire service capability rating specific to fire loss in a wildfire-prone area without looking at structure survivability from wildfires? I noticed a question on the ISO Web pages concerning the national stance on the thinning of forests to minimize fire danger. Perhaps this is a step toward embracing defensible space as a criterion for rating a community. Currently, the ISO is more interested in a fire department’s linking nine water tenders and pumping on a foundation than structural survivability as provided by the total fire service environment.
REAL ESTATE
This industry is continuously involved with homes in the WUI. Homes in rural settings are in demand and are sold or change hands often. When you buy a home in California, you get to look at a disclaimer that lists all the things about the home people have tried to hide over the years or that might cause problems after the sale. One of the items is whether the home is within a high-hazard wildland area. Nice effort, but useless. My department has advocated that any home sold must be certified to meet defensible space criteria. Understanding that defensible space is very dynamic, our position is this: At the time of sale, we can get rid of the heavy old fuels and then try to work with the owners on the light fuels that come and go. Oddly enough, the real estate industry is well organized (read: politically connected) and in this region has fought against this proposal because it would slow the sale of the home. We tried to point out that prior to sale the mortgage company requires roof, septic tank, and dry rot/termite inspections at a minimum. Any sign of bugs or rot, and the work will be done before the money is released. Our poignant observation was that there seems to be a lot more homes burning down from wildfire in the western United States than falling down because of termites. Perhaps the slow demise of a home from bugs is harder to handle than sudden destruction from fire.
 3 (Source unknown.) |
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LOAN COMPANIES
Most homes involve a loan from some type of institution. Since money is close to most people’s hearts, I believe that if the loan money were not released until the residence was certified defensible, perhaps we could get a handle on the property at the time of sale. This would make defensible space a topic of discussion at the time of the sales contract with the real estate industry, and it would be part of the discussion concerning seller/buyer costs that historically are divided in real estate transactions. Although we probably have the legal authority to require certification at the time of sale, it would be a tough sell to legislate the loan process in this situation. This type of legislation would best fall under state government through the administration of the real estate industry.
PRECONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS
California has been very proactive in developing and requiring the application of WUI standards to projects in the rural areas. Things like fire flow, multiple points of ingress and egress, fuel modification, construction standards, setbacks, and full-width roads have been very effective. I will go out on a limb and say that most homes burning have been built prior to the application of these standards or were rebuilt under the standards applied before the fire. I mention rebuilt because the fire burning down I-15 into the Devore area of San Bernardino County this last siege burned in 1980 during the Panorama Fire. This is a classic example of the work that must be done.
In California, the State Fire Marshal’s Office has approved a Class A roofing assembly with wood shingle material. The shingles have to be treated with a fire retardant. I suppose the assumption is that if the roof catches on fire, the one-hour assembly under the shingles will keep the fire out of the house. This roof assembly has no place in the WUI. First, there is no such thing as a treated wood shingle that will not burn like kindling after being exposed to the elements of weather and time. I have seen roofers use the treated shingles for coffee fires while roofing on cold mornings. Second, when the roof catches on fire, it will spread not only to an adjacent house, but it will also burn through the one-hour assembly in 10 minutes and will require resources to extinguish it. The shingle industry (logging) is a very powerful lobby in this state; the decision to allow any wood on a roof is indicative of that power.
PROBLEM RECOGNITION
Healthy forest initiatives that have been discussed with our land management agencies at the national level, I contend, could be leading us down the wrong path. The major fires of the recent past in Colorado and Arizona, starting with the Los Alamos prescribed fire escape, have generated discussions about the deteriorating health of our national forests. They, of course, have raised the ire of the environmental groups. President Bush has pushed through legislation to increase fuels work in the forests to help stop large and damaging fires. This is all good. Our country can’t afford to continue to burn our forests at this rate; some work must be done to minimize the impact of wildfire on this renewable resource.
Oddly enough, the Forest Service was developed because of wildfires’ burning the forests at the turn of the previous century. There were fires then that eclipsed our best fires of today in homes and lives lost, making the last siege pale in comparison.7 I guess the message in that statement is that wildfire is nothing new by any means.
The Healthy Forest Initiative could lead the layman to believe that the homes are burning because wildfires are turning into conflagrations in the open forests and then swooping down on unsuspecting subdivisions, leaving total destruction in their wake (photo 3). I guess I would have to see their point, because that is kind of what’s happening, and all the talking heads are saying that is the problem.
Didn’t the Cedar Fire start deep in Cedar Creek and then, under dry desert winds, rip down out of the hills and burn bunches of homes? What about the Rodeo Fire or the Colorado fires? Didn’t they all burn from the forests into the homes and get them all? Well, they did, but I will let you in on a secret: We can live in the fire environment. We can survive large fires swooping out of wilderness areas. We need to focus on our home ignition zones; then the fire will burn by. Data from numerous wildfires support this concept. Homes that maintained their 100-foot ignition zone around the house generally survived the most extreme wildfire. I am not diminishing the work that needs to be done under the Healthy Forest Initiative, but the environmental groups will fight any large-scale work in the forests. They are doing it now, and they are the worst obstacles to any forest health programs that will minimize fires. To overcome this problem will take time—time we do not have.
The nice thing is that the environmentalists can’t tell you what to do on your property. Use an old military doctrine. Attack their weaknesses, and ignore their strengths. You can develop an environment with Mother Nature’s finest in abundance while maintaining defensible space. Fire departments like mine have created ordinances that allow you to clear adjacent property outside your property line so your neighbor can’t adversely affect you when he makes the choice to burn. We need to try and focus on macro forest management issues for the long term, but we also need to emphasize micromanagement principles on individual parcels around individual homes. We need to connect the dots. When done properly, the fires will go around, they will stop, or they will go through in a less intense manner. If you are responsible for the safety of a community surrounded by national forests, support the local forest district’s efforts to cure the forest, but spend your time connecting the dots. It will work, and the environmental groups will never see you coming.
PREPAREDNESS
California has an incredible mutual-aid system that has proven many times over it can move equipment from one end of the state to the other. I offer that the environment of the WUI has changed, but the fire service has not. FIRESCOPE was a derivative of the same type of fire siege in 1970. It was a monumental leap from previous systems in place. It is time to make adjustments again. The Office of Emergency Services (OES) is tasked with coordinating all the local government fire resources in California. Through this program, we can move literally thousands of fire engines to a fire. The problem is many of the resources moved are not capable of dealing with the assignment. At one time, it seemed insurmountable to get the equipment to the fire. Now that we have done that, it is time to make sure the equipment is worth the cost and can operate safely and effectively when it arrives. The primary use of the mutual-aid system in Cali-fornia is wildfire, yet there are no inspection criteria for these engines relative to basic training, equipment on board, and communications. This results in engines at fires with no communications capacity, improper protective gear, improper firefighting equipment, and minimal training for the WUI environment. It would be no different than sending one of my engines to a high-rise fire in New York.
Conversely, OES also oversees the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) program in California. My department had three on-site inspections and spent almost one year getting our rescue certified as USAR Type II under the OES system. Although the program has merit, it is unlikely we will be deployed as a resource under the OES mutual-aid system. We are deployed a minimum of six times each summer for wildfires under the OES mutual system. We have never had an inspection to validate our capabilities under this program for wildfire use. We need to prepare our resources for the problem at hand, and we are not doing it on a consistent basis.
Out of the ashes comes hope, right? I am afraid it will be business as usual. A Blue Ribbon Panel/Commission was put together to get answers to the WUI dilemma. I was dismayed at the answer given by a senior staff member from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF).8 It was predictable and probably tells more about the problem than we can imagine. He said we need one more firefighter on each engine, we need funding for year-round programs, and we need to re-place all our old air tankers. When I was young, an old battalion chief told me something that has stuck with me to this day: “If you give an idiot enough money, he can eventually put any fire out.” Walking the line of saving face and really addressing issues is a fine line to walk indeed.
I suppose I have made it clear that I think people need to be much more accountable for their space than they are; in this instance, this philosophy applies to those living in the WUI. People are funny. If you try to tell them they have to do something to stay safe, they will invoke their right of privacy. On the other hand, when they are hurt or suffer a loss because of the very threat we spoke to them about, they want to be taken care of. Finally, after the bad thing happens they want to sue because the government did not protect them. I guess it is like teenagers who want parents out of their life, but could they give them a lift to the mall first? The problem is these decisions to live within the WUI without regard for any precautions place an unacceptable cost on us all. The issue is an old one, but it is becoming new by the very nature of its evolution. The fire service needs to adjust, and it is time we placed the responsibility and accountability back in the laps of those who make the choice to live in the WUI. Only then can partnerships develop that will address the problem in a realistic manner. Then and only then can we toss money at the monster with a clear conscience.
Endnotes
1. Winds that blow from the desert west to the Pacific Ocean when a high pressure establishes itself over the southern desert and a low pressure establishes itself off the California coast. Historically, strong dry and warm winds blowing off shore.
2. Basically a 100-foot circle around the home that requires some maintenance within the circle to eliminate ignition sources.
3. Legislation requiring defensible space around homes, a citable offense with fine if not complied with.
4. Heavier fuels will generate firebrands for extended periods, requiring an engine assignment for many hours.
5. Jeffery Pine generates a needle four to six inches long, resulting in a volatile buoyant fuel bed.
6. Fountain Fire, Shasta Trinity Ranger Unit, CDF, 64,000 acres of timber and brush.
7. In 1871 in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, more than 1,000 people were killed, and the community was destroyed.
8. CDF is the primary agency responsible for the areas burned in southern California. It is under pressure to explain why it happened. It is political and will not place the blame where it lies, with the homeowners—therefore, the typical bureaucratic response: “Give us more money.”
MICHAEL S. TERWILLIGER is chief of the Truckee (CA) Fire District. He began his career in 1972 with the California Department of Forestry, where he served for 24 years in the following assignments: division chief of operations (South) in the Nevada-Yuba-Placer Ranger Unit and operation section chief and planning section chief on a Type I team from 1988 to 1996. He is a certified fire behavior analyst. He was a member of the Sierra Front Wildfire Cooperators Team, which operates along the eastern California/Nevada border, and served as its incident commander for six years. He also instructs operations section chiefs, division group supervisors, and strike team leaders.
