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The San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District is touting its new comprehensive wildfire mitigation efforts and squaring up with the California State Parks System, which the district said has imposed obstacles to wildfire safety in communities adjacent to state park land.
The district began work early last year to establish “a model for wildfire resilience that could be replicated statewide,” according to a press release Tuesday, with the goal of reducing wildfire risks in order to allow residents access to more affordable insurance options.
“Our goal from the beginning was to protect lives,” said outgoing Fire Chief Paige Meyer, on his second-to-last day on the job. “We used advanced mapping technology, state fire severity data, and our own internal analysis to identify the areas most vulnerable to wildfire. From there, we developed a plan to reduce risk, strengthen response capabilities, and protect our communities before a disaster occurs.”
The planning was guided by the use of the state’s fire severity maps as well as risk assessments generated by SRVFPD, in an effort to identify areas where wildfires would pose the largest threat to safety for property and residents and pose the largest challenges for safe evacuations. The mitigation strategy that the district developed included improvements to evacuation routes and response planning, and new strategic fuel breaks aimed at slowing or stopping wildfires.
However, implementing that plan, according to SRVFPD officials, proved to go far less smoothly than its development had due to alleged “significant and prolonged barriers” from the state parks system, which owns a sizable portion of the high-risk areas near residential developments that were identified in the planning phase.
“What should have been a collaborative effort to reduce wildfire risk turned into nearly nine months of delays,” Meyer said. “The majority of these obstacles stemmed directly from the State Parks approval process.”
Ultimately, the district was able to complete work on less than 10% of the 300 acres identified for mitigation work due to alleged “extensive restrictions” from the state parks system, including protections for the Manzanita species, cultural monitoring requirements, permitting and oversight fees, and wildlife protection and temperature constraints that placed “strict limitations on allowable work windows,” according to SRVFPD officials.
Those concerns were also listed in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Armando Quintero, director for the state’s department of parks and recreation, in which Meyer called for “immediate executive action” regarding wildfire risk on state park land.
California State Parks officials said in a statement Jan. 7 that the agency had just learned of the letter from Meyer, and it was currently under review, saying they would respond to the district’s concerns and “identify potential areas of improvement within the state’s control.”
SRVFPD also criticized how the mitigation efforts were funded – with the project costing the district more than $120,000 for the 22 acres on which work was completed, of which Meyer said 75% went to the state parks system for environmental compliance, monitoring, and oversight requirements, “leaving only 25 percent applied to actual wildfire mitigation work on the ground.”
“We will not be the next community asked what we failed to do,” Meyer said. “We identified the risk, secured funding, developed a plan, formally notified the state, and acted responsibly. Our obligation is to protect our residents, not to accept preventable risk or unfair cost-shifting.”
The letter to state officials and Tuesday’s press release marked one of Meyer’s final acts as fire chief, with Jonah Aguiar set to take the reins effective Thursday. The incoming chief noted that he supported Meyer’s message to the state, and that the district would be continuing to push for solutions under his leadership.
“We are committed to protecting our residents, our firefighters, and our communities,” Aguiar said. “This work is about preparedness, prevention, and accountability. We have the data, the expertise, and the will to act. What we need is the ability to move forward without unnecessary barriers, and a system that requires the state to take responsibility for mitigation on state-owned land.”
Aguiar added that the district is holding out hope that the state will take action to allow the remaining 250+ acres of high risk land identified by SRVFPD to undergo mitigation work in order to “deliver the level of protection our residents deserve.”
Although a formal response from state parks officials was pending as of Wednesday evening, they said in a statement that day that the agency values its partnership with SRVFPD on wildfire mitigation and preparedness efforts in the Mount Diablo region, and pointed to other recent executive action from the state aimed at removing “red tape” in the permitting process for fire resilience.
However, they noted that the work in question by SRVFPD is also subject to “federal requirements outside of state control” that were presented to SRVFPD early in the mitigation project’s development, and added that the agency had approved the permit application from the district within four weeks.
State parks officials also pointed to ongoing, state-led wildfire mitigation projects in the Mount Diablo Region, including a series of controlled burns in the coming weeks that was announced Tuesday.
