The California legislator calls on the state to accelerate the rules that some scientists and firefighters say that they may have contributed to alleviating the damage from devastating forest fires in Los Angeles.
The idea is simple: by having homeowners the first 5 feet around a home of flammable vegetation, wooden fences and rubble, you can spread the risk of glowing the glow of structure to structure.
California legislation passed a legislative template in 2020 to maintain the so-called Ember-Resistant zones around their houses in the owner in fire-prone areas. The legislation commissioned the board for forestry and fire protection to write rules that should be precisely the rules of how this should look like by January 1, 2023. However, the board has not yet done this and still has no fixed schedule for when I will be finished.
Asked why the CEO Edith Hannigan is behind the schedule for more than two years, the CEO replied with a statement that the agency is still in the “prevention phase” of the development of the standards and focuses on options for financial options Find help and education to help people adhere to them.
“There are many facets as part of this complex process,” she said.
State Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), who represents fire-ready Malibu and Pacific Palisades, is dissatisfied with the delay and how the legislator could open the agency to the pace, and says that it is important for the standards as a homeowner build up.
“I am frustrated that these regulations do not yet come from the Forest Board,” said Allen, who chairs the subcommittee, who approved the budget of the board. “After seeing my community burning, I want you to take measures.”
Senator Henry Stern (D-Calabasas) also asks the board to move faster.
“We can't afford to step down the street,” he said in a explanation and gave the rules a question of life and death for homeowners and their neighbors. “If we strive to rebuild the Southland, we also have to make sure that our communities will still be in California.”
Both the palisades and Eaton fires burned the brushes in the middle of violent winds by Santa Ana Glut, the houses lit. According to a preliminary report by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, flames spread to data protection coats and fences on neighboring properties and overwhelming fire fighting resources.
Several experts said the goal of an ember-resistant zone-also as a zone zero-it is to separate connections between properties in order to reduce the risk of this type of spread. Such precautions also reduce the likelihood that a home ignites by withdrawing the embers of material material in order to burn against a structure.
“We definitely know from our research and follow-up analyzes of the defending space that Zone Zero is most critical,” said Steve Hawks, Senior Director of the Institute of Wildfire.
The fires took place during such an extreme weather that even if a homeowner has taken all adequate precautions that the winds could have helped the gluten to ignite a neighboring structure and then spread, said Ron Durbin, head of the fire brigade of Los Angeles County, Ron Durbin. At the same time, he said, and would have made 5-foot ember-resistant zones in the houses “still made a difference if everyone would have done it right.”
Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) introduced the legislation of the Zone Zero when she worked in the State Assembly in 2017 and 2018 in the state assembly, which emphasized that they must be proactive when preparing such moisture offenses, she said.
“I would say it is far over the time to suppress these regulations in writing and the public,” said Friedman.
As soon as the standards have been written, the standards apply to both new buildings and existing houses in areas that make up a high risk of forest fire from the state. These areas could change soon, since the legislation was passed by the California fire brigade marshal in 2021 to expand the illustration of the fire hazard in areas of the state in which local governments are responsible for the oppression of fire fighting.
These cards are based on an updated forest fire hazard model that takes into account new science, informs local climate data and the predictions about the spread of fires and the way in which the Embers travel has improved, said California Fire Marshal Berlant.
This will probably lead to more areas than fireplace, especially dense communities near wildland areas such as Altadena, the parts of which were destroyed by the Eaton fire, said Durbin.
The new maps, which are expected to be sent to affected cities for adoption this month, could lead to more houses to comply with both existing brush release programs and the outstanding regulations of the zone zero and to build the state's new forest fire building. Code.
Some may be bothering this: Although the law of the zone zero was not exposed to formal organized opposition, several legislators remember to get an ear from real estate owners who had obtained the costs or the aesthetics of removing plants and fences from their houses .
“Certainly there are people who will say that it is not the responsibility of the state to say private owners what they should do with their country, and Friedman.” But if they live in a community that is located in a high fire zone , we have to recognize that a property that is obviously insecure can endanger an entire neighborhood. “
Bill Dodd, a retired democratic senator who represented fire -prone areas such as Napa County and part of the Sonoma district, said that many homeowners resisted the regulations of the zone zero, even after the fires damaged their communities in 2017.
“Even after the fires in Napa, we had people who said:” I never take my trees out, “he said.
Before Dodd left the Senate last year, he wrote a successful legislation and the owners three years to fulfill the rules of the zone zero, and said he was concerned about the costs for rural homeowners. This three-year phase-in only apply for new buildings for those who have to retrofit their property.
However, Friedman said that the rules could save homeowners in the long term by prompting insurance companies to continue to write guidelines for houses in fire -prone areas. And both you and all of them pointed out that the costs for compliance are far out forced by losing your own fire against fire.
“After people have either lost their houses from their houses, friends don't want to play around,” said Allen. “I think there is an appetite for more serious regulation when it comes to ensuring that our communities are better prepared for catastrophic forest fires.”
The Board of Forestry Staff intends to have a proposal for the rules “as soon as it is feasible,” said Hannigan in her explanation. The fireman then has to approve them.
Hannigan pointed out that many local jurisdiction, including the counties San Diego and Napa, the Orange County Fire Authority, Rancho Santa Fe, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, Ben Lomond, Humboldt and Laguna Beach, in the meantime their own zone NUL -have accepted regulations.
La County has not taken over such a regulation until the state is exposed to instructions, but inspectors of new construction projects have been instructed to write vegetation that grow on a structure as violations, said Chief Durbin.
It leads to the delay of the state in the development of the rules for difficulties to achieve consensus about what they should look like.
“It is probably a bit of politics in connection with insurance and aesthetics and the attempt not to upset people,” he said. “But if it is between the disorders of people and the standing of a home, standing of a home must be the most important piece.”