Mulch is keeping me, Pam Marino, awake at night. More specifically, the mulch spread around my house is what’s making me lose sleep.
Why? I have a friend who was an eyewitness to the Eaton Fire in Altadena back in January. He has thoughts about how homes there could have been better protected. One takeaway was that no house should have mulch close to its exterior walls.
I made a mental note at the time to “someday” replace my mulch with pea gravel.
Then the new Cal Fire hazard maps were released on March 10. And just like that, my neighborhood on the Monterey Peninsula was painted a deep crimson on the map. I now live in a very high fire severity zone.
Suddenly I had vivid images of mulch burning around the edges of my house, along with the nearby oak trees ablaze, resulting in my house and everything inside it burning to the ground.
The maps were updated in direct response to the Los Angeles fires, after neighborhoods not previously on the fire hazard maps were decimated. Since the map was first developed in 1981 in response to the 1980 Panorama Fire in San Bernardino County, it’s morphed over the years after subsequent fires, as we’ve learned more about how these wildfires behave and can be better prevented and fought.
The new map released last week now includes two new zones, “Moderate Fire Severity” and “High Fire Severity.”
On March 13, the City of Monterey released data that shows there are now 511 acres of the city in the moderate zone, 1,020 acres in the high fire zone and 1,220 acres in the very high severity zone, up from 1,106 acres in 2011.
The Monterey Fire Department has contracts with other cities: Carmel, Pacific Grove and Sand City. Carmel now shows 100 acres in the moderate zone, 110 acres in the high fire zone and 278 acres in the very high severity zone, up from 221. P.G. has 141 acres in the moderate zone, 64 acres in the high and 167 acres in the very high zone, up from 82. Sand City went from zero to 26 acres in the moderate fire severity zone.
You can see the map yourself here. Cal Fire has a great resource page about the maps here.
What does this mean for property owners in the very high fire severity zone? State regulations require that you create a 100-foot defensible space around structures. Cal Fire has details on what this means on its Defensible Space page. You can find more details about the law on this factsheet.
It also means new building requirements for new builds and remodels with the use of fire-rated materials. Property owners must also disclose the status of the hazard in a sale. Home hardening techniques, like installing a fine mesh over vents and chimneys to prevent embers from entering, is recommended.
Monterey Fire Division Chief Justin Cooper tells me that property owners currently have a three-year grace period to comply with the defensible space requirements. Officials from Monterey Fire will be going door-to-door during this time to educate people on what changes they need to make.
“We’re trying to work with the public because we know this is a big change,” he says. The biggest focus currently is on clearing the 0- to 5-foot space around structures, which means replacing material that’s going to burn, including fences and other wooden structures that connect to homes, like decks, with state-approved non-combustible materials. The California State Fire Marshal provides an online booklet of approved wildlife urban interface (WUI) products.
As to how the law will be enforced, Cooper says it’s unclear what the state will do to enforce the rules after the three years, but already insurance companies are driving people to make changes. He says one local homeowner was told he had to replace his redwood deck with fire-rated materials in order to be covered.
You’ll hear the term “WUI” a lot more in the coming years. Cooper tells me that upgrading a home to WUI standards could mean a 40-percent increased chance of the home surviving a wildfire.
Wildfires don’t pay attention to lines drawn on a map. Even if you’re not in a very high severity zone your home could be at risk. What are you planning to do to protect it and your neighborhood?