CLEARLAKE>>> This past Thursday at the Judges Breakfast in Clearlake Lake County Fire Protection District Fire Chief William Sapeta presented alongside LCFPD Fire Marshall Autumn Lancaster regarding fire preparedness, where Lake County stands in fire mitigation and prevention this year.
Sapeta, celebrating 40 years with the LCFPD, gave an overview of the district referring to the 2024 annual report that was recently released. According to the report, the district saw an increase in overall total calls from 5,724 in 2023 to 6,177 calls in 2024 making it their “busiest year tracked yet.” He also summarized the wildfires they fought firsthand last year, which included the 81 acre Boyles fire and 16 acre Adams fire.
Altogether the “LCFPD responded to 163 fires in 2024. There were 52 vegetation fires and 38 structure or mobile home fires.” The report also reflects a 100 percent completion rate for state mandated inspections which are required of hotels, schools, and apartment buildings, ensuring that these structures are up to date in their California Fire Code compliance.
Chief Sapeta attributes their successes to many aspects of their department, including the many mutual aid agreements that they have been able to make, especially with Mendocino, Colusa, and Yolo counties who agreed to “auto aid” which is where those counties’ send crews directly to incidents in Lake County without having to be asked. If they are available, they just come.
Sapeta also noted the impact made by “prepositioning” where the fire district will, with the assistance of their mutual aid partners, position fire engines, ambulances, a strike team, and buses ready for evacuation in anticipation of an incident. This strategy was most important during the Adams fire where the staging allowed for an immediate response leading to the defense of several structures. Konocti Unified School District Superintendent Becky Solato expressed her gratitude for the district’s prepositioning during the Boyles fire when she had to evacuate an entire school full of students on a very short notice stating “I had littles who were getting on a bus to evacuate their school with fire and flames right there that they could see. They had to come back to that school, and the chief and his team were right there to welcome them back.” Sapeta added, “As your trying to man an incident, you’re on the phone trying to fill out the ABC form which there’s critical infrastructure, the college, the school, highway 53 and the hospital – all that is done while you’re trying to coordinate response to the fire.” Lancaster elaborated “All the information that Chief Sapeta just gave you is what he accomplishes in a 10 minute window during the initial attack of these fires.”
Lancaster dove deeper into all of the inspections that the department is involved with, as homeowners have access to many of these potentially money saving insurance inspection programs. Wildfire Prepared Home is a program of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) that helps homeowners to best prepare their homes for the threat of wildfire. She explained “Embers are the most common cause of home ignition.” She added that embers account for 90 percent of structural ignition. Homeowners can retrofit their properties with smaller mesh screens for vents, installing covered metal gutters and noncombustible siding, upgrading to noncombustible decking materials, and also clearing their roof of debris and maintaining a 5 foot noncombustible zone around the home. Lancaster said, “The core message I want out of this presentation, is that what you do with your home ignition zone matters, what you do to your roof, what you do to your gutters and what you do to that first 5 feet is going to be the most impactful thing you could do.” She continued that by doing so, home owners increase their houses’ probability of standing even if the rest of their neighborhood is not prepared.
