Dear members of the Portola Valley Town Council,
I am writing this email to address three items on the Town Council Meeting Agenda for Wednesday Sept 13, 2023: The Housing Element (4.a), the Evacuation Plan Review (4.d.) and the WFPD ordinance (4.c.) presented out of order due to the lengthy discussion of the WFPD ordinance.
4.a. Housing Element
I support Lynda Brothers comment which was supported by Laura Russell at the September 6, 2023 Planning Commission Meeting (at 2:01 on the Youtube recording) to prepare a line by line document in response to the recent HCD letter before resubmitting or working on the text of the actual Housing Element. This line by line process would not open the Housing Element up to an additional new set of comments. I also think this process would also ensure that our town resources are not spent writing up areas of the Housing Element that may or may not be required before the negotiations are complete.
4.d. Evacuation Plan Review
I appreciate the hard work of the Emergency Preparation Committee and in particular Rob Younge in leading the effort to have an Evacuation Plan. I fully support this large effort and am looking forward to seeing the specific tasks and schedule for items under the preview of the town.
I am concerned about the statement that enclosed in the report that “It is generally not advisable for the Council to formally adopt the Evacuation Plan in its entirety, as adoption would imply a responsibility for carrying the Plan out; any evacuation will be carried out primarily by our partner agencies.”
In researching other similar communities, I have seen several towns that have officially approved Evacuation plans while relying upon partner agencies.
The clearest example I found was Malibu that adopted a Mass Evacuation Plan in August of 2020 that was approved by the city council that is a subset of their Emergency Operations Plan. The Malibu Mass Evacuation Plan is available here: https://www.malibucity.org/ DocumentCenter/View/26832/FINAL-Evacuation-Plan-8192020 Malibu has passed a resolution in 2019 adopting their 2018 Emergency Operations Plan, and in 2020 adopted an update for the inclusion of a Mass Evacuation Plan. The date, resolutions and titles are listed below:
09-09-19 RESOLUTION NO. 19-10 – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF MALIBU ADOPTING THE 2018 EMERGENCY OPERATIONS PLAN
02-24-20 RESOLUTION NO. 20-09 – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF MALIBU ADOPTING UPDATES TO THE 2018 EMERGENCY OPERATIONS PLAN FOR
INCLUSION OF THE MASS EVACUATION PLAN
Malibu unfortunately has had direct experience with a mass evacuation. Their lead agency is the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) Incident Commander along with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. They also have a large number of additional partner agencies listed below:
1. Cal Trans
2. CHP (California Highway Patrol)
3. LAPD - West LA. (Los Angeles Police Department - West Los Angeles)
4. LASD - LHS (Los Angeles Sheriff Department - Lost Hills Sheriff)
5. LASD - DOC. (Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Operations Center0
6. Santa Monica PD. (Santa Monica Police Department)
7. Ventura County Sheriff's Department Department of Public Works
4.b. Woodside Fire Protection District (WFPD) Ordinance No. 13-2023 I write in full support of the Woodside Fire Protection District (WFPD) Ordinance No. 13-2023.
I served for three years (2019-2021) on the Ad-Hoc Wildfire Committee on the Home Hardening Subcommittee and as the Chair of the Vegetation Management Subcommittee. The ordinance expands on the California requirements in a number of valuable ways including lithium Ion batteries increasingly common here in the district, basements, and a requirement for a Fire Protection Plan and a Landscape Plan for large scale construction. All three of these along with other provisions in this ordinance will help make Portola Valley safer while protecting our firefighters.
A few objections have been raised by members of our community that I wish to address in the rest of this letter. Some of this discussion is background material that sets the context of this and upcoming Fire Code ordinances that I believe is useful for our council to understand.
First and foremost, we can rely upon WFPD’s experience and judgement to approve this ordinance, and not require a line by line set of scientific references.
In the following material I will discuss three main areas:
1. The value of direct firefighting experience in writing ordinances
2. The limitations of today’s firefighting science
3. How Defensible Space is also about fire fighter safety
4. Why an exhaustive list of purely objective standards has limitations with overlapping considerations
5. The definition of a Fire Protection Plan for large scale construction
6. The costs of not passing this ordinance
Experience and Science
Our WFPD has many years of experience with ‘boots on the ground’ fighting fires. Most fires are not wildfires but house fires or fires consuming only a few acres of land. This collective experience, training, and instinct is brought to these new ordinances.
Scientific studies of fire have occurred for many years and recently to more advanced topics such as building separation. Insurance companies are struggling to model both the effects of climate change and the effects of building separation with complex algorithms. Unfortunately, exhaustive analysis under all conditions for an individual home is still algorithmically and runtime intensive that the insurance companies today largely rely upon on site inspections and a set of guidelines to determine eligibility of a property.
One simple example is the different types of vegetative material. Oak trees are fire resistant and can be protective of the home as long as they are not overhanging the roof or too close to a structure. Pine or Eucalyptus on the other hand are highly flammable trees with a resin that resembles oil. The natural world contains thousands of different plants and no comprehensive database exists to measure the flammability of each species. And depending upon the amount of irrigation or lack thereof and maintenance of the landscape, the flammability of the material of individual plants can vary significantly.
Defensible space
As long term Portola Valley residents we have heard and used the term defensible space for many years, far longer than the more recent term home hardening. Just for clarity, defensible space refers to vegetation and landscaping, where home hardening refers to the building and construction materials.
Since we are so accustomed to the term defensible space, we have as a collective forgotten the origin of the term. Currently we think of it as appropriate landscaping with a list of requirements of plant spacing and maintenance in different zones. But in fact the term’s origin is about fire fighter safety. Where can a firefighter stand to defend your home from an approaching fire. Is there enough ‘space’ for the firefighter to stand between your home and the approaching flames? Or will the heat generated from the flames burning up some brush be too near for them to defend your home? One reason defensible space requirements for steep slopes are increased because of the amount of heat that can be generated and dangerously impact the human body while rising up a slope — thereby risking the lives of our firefighters.
Objective standards
The desire for clear unambiguous objective standards would make life easier. With so many variables in the equation, ordinances and guidelines will likely never be exhaustive. An exhaustive list ends up having no wiggle room for easily permissible exceptions such as a lush rhododendron or succulents in a landscape location where other plants may be a wildfire hazard.
Various people have asked me to asses their property with my deep knowledge of fire. In some situations problematic vegetation is obvious and clear. In other situations, I strongly urge the homeowner to seek a professional fire fighter’s opinion as situations often get quite complicated to assess without firefighting experience. For example, a set of somewhat flammable vegetation on a slope that is not particularly long a concern? The topography in Portola Valley makes black and white rules difficult at best particularly in our deep appreciation for the natural landscape. We don’t want to create a set of ordinances that are so fire safe that we scrape huge areas of land and leave no vegetation for wildlife to thrive.
Fire Protection Plan and Landscape Plan
The ordinance requires a fire protection plan and a landscape plan for approval by the Fire Code Official. Today the construction process already includes an approval process by the WFPD before a building permit is issued. The Fire Protection Plan and the Landscape Plan in Chapter 49 of the California code is not a large expansion of what already is in home construction documents.
For clarity here is the actual reference of the Fire Protection Plan in Chapter 49 found here:
4903.2.1.1 Preliminary Fire Protection Plan
When a preliminary fire protection plan is submitted, it shall include, at a minimum, the following:
1. Total size of the project.
2. Information on the adjoining properties on all sides, including current land uses, and if known, existing structures and densities, planned construction, natural vegetation, environmental restoration plans, roads and parks.
3. A map with all project boundary lines, property lines, slope contour lines, proposed structure foundation footprints, and proposed roads and driveways. The map shall identify project fuel modification zones and method of identifying the fuel modification zone boundaries
4903.2.1.2 Final Fire Protection Plan
The final fire protection plan shall include items listed in Section 4903.2.1.1 and the following:
1. A map identifying all proposed plants in the fuel modification zones with a legend that includes a symbol for each proposed plant species. The plan shall include specific information on each species proposed, including but not limited to:
• The plant life-form;
• The scientific and common name; and
• The expected height and width for mature growth.
2. Identification of irrigated and non-irrigated zones.
3. Requirements for vegetation reduction around emergency access and evacuation routes.
4. Identification of points of access for equipment and personnel to maintain vegetation in common areas.
5. Legally binding statements regarding community responsibility for maintenance of fuel modification zones.
6. Legally binding statements to be included in covenants, conditions and restrictions regarding property owner responsibilities for vegetation maintenance.
Costs
Some residents have commented about the costs of this ordinance. The costs of this ordinance will only be for people who are performing at a minimum significant remodels.
These homeowners are already financially solvent enough to make major investments and it would be prudent to protect the updated structure for fire resiliency.
Fire does not follow boundaries and in fact spreads very easily along wood fences. A neighbor’s fire resiliency has a direct affect on the resiliency of their neighbors. I know of one neighbor who almost lost their insurance due to their immediate neighbor’s unwillingness in the short term to address a wildfire hazard. We need to slowly upgrade our housing stock’s resiliency and requiring updating for fire resiliency during a significant remodel or a new subdivision is an important tool.
The ordinance also permits a homeowner who finds an assessment or fine inappropriate has the right to appeal.
The opportunity cost of not following WFPD recommendations is significant. We would be ignoring the opportunity with any significant construction to mitigate for significant fire hazards addressed by this ordinance.
In summary, I recommend that the Town Council ratify WFPD’s ordinance NO. 13-2023.
Thank you for considering my comments on all three of these items.
Karen Vahtra