San Diego Wildfires, Part 4 of 4: Fireproof Your Neighborhood

September 22, 2019

Once you have taken steps to fireproof your house, and fireproof your property, the third level of wildfire preparation is to fireproof your neighborhood. This is an ongoing community effort, which includes spreading awareness of fire prevention, as wells as identifying fire hazards in our common areas.

Fireproof your neighborhood by making our common areas and wildlands more firesafe, with wildland maintenance, and prevention education.

Wildland Maintenance and Habitat Restoration

This non-native Lantana plant harbors a thick underbrush of dead vegetation, which can burn quickly in a wildfire. — Lantana harbors thick dead vegetation, which can burn quickly in a wildfire.

While some may look pretty on our hillsides, one of the biggest problems in our wildlands is the proliferation of invasive weeds. Our open space has been invaded by non-native plants that dry out easily, create lots of leaf litter, and can ignite easily. Walk through your neighborhood, identify these unwelcome residents, and remove as many as possible.

Pampas grass is a highly invasive garden plant that has found its way into public space. Note the closeup on the right of the thin, dry, paper-like leaf litter, which are known to be highly flammable. — Pampas grass makes thin, dry, paper-like leaf litter, known to be highly flammable.

Today, many of the hillsides that used to have dense, native foliage are now filled with non-native grasses. These grasses were planted by European settlers who used this land for grazing. These invasive grasses dry out easily and are highly flammable. As a result, once a fire starts in these grasses, it spreads quickly. Protect your neighborhood by removing these grasses and other dead vegetation, and restoring the natural habitat.

“Much of the involved areas (following the 2007 fires) appear to be degraded grassland. Although the flames are not as intense, they are flashy fuels and the fires move extremely fast. Whole acreage can go up instantly. This is the most dangerous condition, especially when mixed with degraded, sickly chaparral.” – Greg Rubin

Habitat restoration projects are going on all over San Diego County, and there are lots of horticulturalists and land management specialists in the area. These specialists can help you restore your neighborhood’s hillsides to native vegetation, which is less flammable, resists erosion, requires very little maintenance, and is wildlife-friendly. While habitat restoration is labor-intensive at first, the results are long-lasting.

Prevention Education: Checklist

There are many safety measures we can take to reduce our chances of accidentally starting a wildfire. Landscape architect Kay Stewart has provided a list:

Teach children to never ignite fires in wildlands.
Restrict outdoor gun target practice between June and November. Bullets strike boulders, make sparks, resulting in fires.
Anyone working with gas-powered tools near wildlands should have a fire extinguisher. More fires are started by people with gas powered machinery in dry vegetation than due to any other accidental cause.
Take note of power poles that appear to move in winds, because these may spark and start a wildfire. Report them to the power company.
Remove any dead plants near shoulders on highways. Catalytic converters and brakes are hot enough to ignite dry vegetation on contact.
Report people who toss cigarettes out of their cars to the CHP.

Prevention Education: Workshop

Neighbors can also get together and learn about what they can do to protect themselves. For example, there is a workshop called “Living With Wildfire: A Homeowners’ Guide to Reducing Risks from Wildfires”. Local retired USFS forest supervisor Anne Fege developed the workshop, with a grant through the Natural History Museum. Homeowners can learn how to reduce their fire risk by assessing and altering risks on and around their homes and properties. Finally, if a group of home owners wants to hire Dr. Fege to teach the class, send her an e-mail.

Conclusion

San Diego wildfires are dangerous, destructive, and they are happening too frequently. As a result, the damage to homes is significant: according to the U.S. Geological Survey, an average of 1,000 Southern California homes per year have been lost to wildfire since 2000. Also, the frequent wildfires are destroying our native chaparral habitat, and this habitat destruction paves the way for invasive grass development, which also increases the risk and speed of wildfires.

“In Southern California, we need to change the way we look at fires, to prepare and manage for them, as we would for earthquakes, floods, and other inevitable disasters; in other words, learn to live with fire.” -Jon Keely, Fire Ecologist, U.S. Geological Survey

Final Thoughts

Fortunately, there are things we can do to help block wildfires from our open space and our neighborhoods. There are also steps we can take to help prevent the ignition of wildfire. For example, parks from electrical power lines were responsible for several of the 2007 wildfires. In response, utility companies have proposed to cut power in high-risk areas during extreme Santa Ana wind conditions. Since humans are the cause of wildfires, we need to figure out ways to stop starting them.

The media often reports that the only way to protect your house from burning down is to simply remove nearby vegetation. However, that has not been shown to be an effective solution.

“Ironically, a significant number of fires have been started when people are trying to ‘clear’ vegetation to reduce fire risk on windy and/or hot days.” – Richard Halsey, biologist and fire ecologist

Experts who study the aftermath of fires have found that a combination of preventive measures seem to protect homes most effectively, starting with fireproofing the house itself. In addition, hydrated and well-maintained landscaping can slow down a wildfire. In contrast, we observe that certain plants seem to burn faster and hotter than others, especially when they are dry.

“We need to create communities and living situations where we allow the fires to burn around us, not through us.” – Richard Halsey

Finally: addressing all three levels of wildfire preparation: your house, your property, and your neighborhood, will help to reduce your risk from wildfires.

Thanks to these local experts for contributing to this article:

Kay Stewart is a local native plant expert and landscape architect. You can contact her via her website.

Frank Landis is a botanist, writer, and conservation chair of the San Diego Chapter of the California Native Plant Society.

Greg Rubin is the CEO of California’s Own Native Landscape Design, Inc. He also co-authored The California Native Landscape: The Homeowner’s Design Guide to Restoring Its Beauty and Balance with Lucy Warren. Rubin is a recognized leader in the field of native plant design, which specializes in creating stable, sustainable, ornamental, low-input gardens with substantial habitat and wildlife value. He has been featured in Kiplinger’s, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. Finally, Greg’s recent landscaping projects include Hilton Resorts in Carlsbad and Oceanside, the Del Mar Fairgrounds, The Lux Art Institute, Agua Hedionda Lagoon Discovery Center, and Ecke Ranch High Point. You can contact him via his website.

Rubin, Greg and Lucy Warren, The California Native Landscape: The Homeowner’s Design Guide to Restoring Its Beauty and Balance. Timber Press Inc., 2013. Order here.

Rubin, Greg and Lucy Warren, The Drought-Defying California Garden: 230 Native Plants for a Lush, Low-Water Landscape. Timber Press, Inc., 2016. Order here.

Richard Halsey is a biologist and fire ecologist. He is a popular teacher of natural science at the San Diego Natural History Museum and San Diego’s Mission Trails Regional Park. Halsey has been studying Southern California chaparral for more than two decades. Visit the California Chaparral Institute website to learn more about his education and research efforts.

Halsey, Richard W., Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California. Sunbelt Publications, Inc., 2005. (Free signed copy when you join the California Chaparral Institute for only $40!)