CLEARLAKE— At the May 15 Judge’s Breakfast in Clearlake, Lake County Fire Protection District Fire Marshall Autumn Lancaster and Chief William Sapeta discussed more ways in which to prepare people’s homes and community for this upcoming wildfire fire season.
Lancaster dove deep into home hardening and prepping one’s property to a zone zero landscape, which is a 5 foot resistance space that surrounds one’s home. Discussing how damaging decorative plants can be during wildfires, Lancaster said, “It does not matter how green the plant is, they are not fire resistant no matter how they have been marketed.” Stressing the importance of having zone zero space, Lancaster mentioned the other main steps to retrofitting a home in compliance with all fire regulations, including upgrading metal vents and removing any flammable debris underneath any decking. She added that securing a metal screen barrier around decking is also key in deterring ember ignitions, which account for 90 percent of homes destroyed in a wildfire.
The importance of home fire safety inspections that will help homeowners in getting a wildfire prepared certification and reduced rates from their insurance companies could not be stressed enough, she said. In response to Mark Cooper’s question about how many homeowners had inquired about the inspection program Lancaster answered, “We have had about 10 people reach out about the inspections.”
Also sharing that there are efforts to increase those numbers, she mentioned that these inspections are meant to be a starting point or springboard for homeowners to start their path towards a fire safe home. As the cost to complete these upgrades can be alarmingly high, the LCFPD suggests reaching out to Firewise committees or organizations as there is grant funding available to help with these expenses. Diane Watson shared her experience with the home inspection program. “I knew that I had some work to do, but I got a lot more information that was really beneficial and I have gotten started on it,” she said.
Sapeta spoke on the prepositioning efforts that the LCFPD has been improving on recently, expanding their capabilities through automatic aid agreements. This means that Lake and surrounding counties have all agreed to listen in on each others’ radio channels for the beginnings of a fire or extreme incident that would require outside assistance and automatically respond to those calls.
Historically rural areas like Lake County had not been financial ready for this type of pre-positioned response, but the auto aid agreements have made it much more possible as Sapeta noted, “Where we have come in the last eight years in being prepared and our initial response is great, but it still means locally were having to handle that first hour with what we have here.” Lancaster added “It makes no difference in funding if they stay in our county or get redispatched to another incident in another county.”
Sapeta shared how the local fire departments have lost a lot of funding from 1970 to the present, despite having more responsibility now than then. He said, “It is a struggle for our funding as we lose some to the state every year.” He continued “In the 70s we didn’t do hazmat, we didn’t do urban search and rescue, we didn’t do the things we do, we were just entering into the system.” Doing more with less as more and more mandates are put upon them has stressed fire departments to a point of returning to the federal government to ask for more financial assistance.
The Judge’s Breakfast is scheduled every Thursday at 7 a.m. at the Clearlake Senior Center located at 3245 Bowers Ave, Clearlake.
