Co-Existing with Wildfire

Introduction

Across California, wildfires have been increasing every year. We’re seeing more wildfires burning, larger areas burned, and an increased frequency of high severity fires causing more damage to structures and lives lost. The impacts of devastation and loss, unbreathable air quality, and evacuations are widely felt. Drier winters and hotter summers are a disastrous combination, especially in California where devastating, record-level wildfires scorched more than 4 million acres in 2020 alone. California is the state with the most people (11.2 million) currently living in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI)—the area where houses and wildland vegetation meet or intermingle, and where wildfire problems are most pronounced. The single biggest risk factor driving loss of lives and homes to wildfires is the location and arrangement of homes in high fire risk lands in the WUI (Syphard et al., 2012). For example, placing homes at medium density scattered on ridges, hillsides, in canyons, and on other rural lands with typically winding, narrow roads far from city centers put people and property at the highest level of risk to wildfire. In other words, higher density, city-centered growth is the most wildfire safe.

There are three levels of responsibility that denote who has legal responsibility for fire protection in certain areas of the state:

• State Responsibility Area (SRA) lands are the legal responsibility of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or commonly referred to as CAL FIRE, to provide fire protection. These SRAs are typically unincorporated areas.
• Local Responsibility Areas (LRA) are typically incorporated cities, densely populated areas, possibly agricultural lands. These fall to the responsibility of the local government.
• Federal Responsibility Areas (FRA) include lands administered by the federal government and fire protection in these locations falls to the federal government.

By law, CAL FIRE must map which of the state responsibility areas are Fire Hazard Severity Zones (FHSZ) and areas of Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones (VHFHSZ) within local responsibility areas. All cities and counties in California with lands classified as either SRA or VHFHSZ must meet state planning requirements for fire hazards.

All General Plan Safety Elements for communities in the SRA and LRA VHFHSZ must update their Safety Element to address new wildfire requirements, per SB 1241 (2012). The Safety Element must be updated upon the next Housing Element update on or after January 1, 2014. California’s Office of Planning and Research has produced the Fire Hazard Planning Technical Advisory as a resource.

What’s at Risk

In the past decade alone, the Bay Area has experienced multiple devastating wildfire seasons. Every incident demonstrates the far-reaching impacts of wildfires on our socio-economic and ecological systems and the critical need for planning.

Housing: The Bay Area’s recent fires have destroyed thousands of homes, putting further pressure on the region’s limited housing resources. Wildfire events often result in displacement of those whose homes have burned, and many times also displace already vulnerable populations who are priced out of housing opportunities as a result of acute increases in housing prices post-fire or who do not have access to the resources necessary to pay for insurance or rebuilding. Low-income people and people of color are often the most vulnerable to these displacement effects, further exacerbating existing wealth gaps (Davies et al., 2018). Given past experience and the present risk of future wildfires, continued development in WUI areas with very high fire risk is neither environmentally sustainable nor a viable solution to the state’s housing crisis.

Social and Economic Impacts: Even with the best planning policies in place to prevent future wildfire, local and regional economies will experience the negative impacts that come with the threat of wildfire. Wildfire events can result in cascading impacts to regional systems when transportation, water, and wastewater infrastructure is impacted—often requiring municipalities to invest significant time and resources to return to full capacity. During the 2019 fire season, Bay Area residents experienced regular public safety power shutoff events that affected over 2.5 million people (Zialcita & Gonalez, 2019). These shutoffs not only halted economic activity, but put residents’ health in danger. Municipalities’ fiscal health are increasingly impacted due to wildfires beyond immediate property damage, as local property tax bases become threatened, some residents might move away, and tourism can decrease, all impacting municipal revenues. In addition, wildfire recovery itself typically demands higher public spending.

Environmental and Public Health Impacts: Fire is a natural occurrence in the landscape across the West, needed as part of ecosystem processes. However, extremely hot and large wildfires burn vegetation storing carbon that is then released into the atmosphere, further contributing to planet-warming carbon emissions, while simultaneously impacting habitat and natural systems. Burned areas are more prone to erosion and landslides, as seen after the 2018 Thomas Fire, which can pose serious threats to communities even after the fire has been put out.

Additionally, fires in the WUI burn houses, cars, and other unnatural materials that are then disseminated into the environment through smoke, runoff, and groundwater infiltration (Stein et al, 2012). Smoke can travel hundreds or thousands of miles, and result in severe air quality impacts that are especially dangerous for populations that are already facing disproportionate pollution burdens. Wildfire smoke has also been associated with long-term physical health impacts and an increased likelihood of mental health issues. One recent study found that wildfire smoke, made up of tiny particles called PM2.5, can penetrate into the human respiratory tract, enter the bloodstream, and impair vital organs, making it several times more harmful to humans than car exhaust and other known sources of particulate matter (Aguilera et al, 2021).

Conserving Greenbelts to Reduce Wildfire Risk

Greenbelts can be open spaces, parks, preserves, and agricultural lands which surround or are adjacent to a city or urbanized area, and that restrict or prohibit residential, commercial, and industrial development. Greenbelt zones strategically planned and placed inside subdivisions and communities, as well as recreational greenways such as bike paths, playing fields, and golf courses, are also “greenbelt types” that can play a role in reducing wildfire risk. Wildlands or forest-type landscapes are not included in this definition of greenbelts.

Greenbelts play a beneficial role in reducing wildfire risk and improving resilience in several ways:

• Serving as strategic locations for wildfire defense and temporary refuge areas (TRAs)
• Acting as natural wildfire buffers to create separation from wildlands
• Increasing overall wildfire resilience through land stewardship
• Conserving biodiversity in fire-adapted lands while reducing wildfire risk
• Providing wildfire resistant green spaces inside and surrounding neighborhoods

Lands in close proximity to high wildfire risk communities such as existing parks, open spaces, and preserves can serve multiple functions to reduce wildfire hazards and risk if properly managed. Ecologically sound and site-specific land stewardship before and after wildfires in parks, open spaces, and preserves can contribute to the overall climate resilience by restoring ecosystems adapted to beneficial fire regimes. This can reduce the size and number of extreme wildfires that threaten communities and conserve biodiversity.

Agricultural lands have played a significant role in lowering wildfire risk and damages to homes and communities during wildfires in Sonoma County and elsewhere in Northern California. While agricultural lands can and do burn, they generally contain less flammable biomass and tend to have relatively high water content (via irrigation) or naturally contain moisture (e.g. grapevines). Due to these properties, agricultural lands can serve as natural fuel breaks to shield neighboring homes and communities from wildfires that usually originate in nearby wildlands.

Integrating intentional and strategically situated greenbelt buffer zones into community design within neighborhoods and subdivisions can increase wildfire resilience. Establishing greenbelt buffer zones with fire-resistant landscaping in between clustered homes can serve as defensible space for both firefighting and reducing the chances that embers from an approaching wildfire will land on homes. Greenbelt buffer zones can also create more space between structures, reducing home-to-home ignition between blocks of homes, as that is often the main cause of destruction of neighborhoods, not the wildfire flames.

Policymakers must prioritize the protection, expansion, and long-term stewardship of open spaces and parks, agricultural lands, and other greenbelts in and around communities in high wildfire risk areas to reap these resilience benefits of greenbelts. Simultaneously, future growth must be channeled within existing cities and towns to address the acute housing crisis and must take a more cautious approach when adding new development in the WUI’s high wildfire risk areas that put more people in harm’s way.

For more in-depth analysis and case studies showcasing how different kinds of greenbelts can be used for wildfire risk reduction, read Greenbelt Alliance’s white paper, The Critical Role of Greenbelts in Wildfire Resilience.

Development and Wildfire Connection

Housing and wildfire risk are inextricably linked. Between 1990 and 2010, roughly half of all housing units built in California were located in the WUI (Lowrey, 2019). This unmitigated sprawl has put more people at risk while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of wildfire ignition, considering that 95% of wildland fires in California are caused by humans, both directly and indirectly (Syphard, 2015). Communities, regions, and the State must consider the role of housing, land use, and urban development in reducing wildfire risk now and into the future. Focusing new development in infill locations is essential for curbing wildfire risk, protecting natural and working lands, and reducing GHG emissions associated with suburban and exurban living.

While increasing the feasibility and scale of development is a top priority for new development, communities already living in the WUI and those that may soon be developed in the WUI also need tools for safely living with fire. Medium-density development in the wildland-urban interface presents the highest risk of loss of lives and homes to wildfire. It’s not the shape and steepness of the land (topography), not the types of trees and brush that grow there (fuel load), not the gaps between a house and trees that fire has to cross (defensible space), not even how likely a building’s materials are to catch fire (home construction)—the highest risk factor is the arrangement of homes in medium-density subdivisions and rural communities in fire-prone landscapes (Syphard, 2012). Placing homes in cities and towns near services, jobs, and transit provides the least wildfire risk. This is further detailed in Syphard’s Fire-Housing Density Risk Curve (below) and in addition, recent studies point to medium-density development as being most vulnerable to wildfire (Syphard et al, 2021).

Land use should reflect the best available fire science through design guidelines and appropriate planning and policy decisions. New growth should be concentrated in developed areas and paired with fire-safe regulations and designs when in WUI locations. California, and the Bay Area in particular, must build and maintain an appropriate supply of homes in resilient infill locations to avoid further expanding into wildlands and exacerbating existing wildfire risk.

Critical Actions to Take Now

• Encourage high-density development in infill locations to prevent increased sprawl and WUI development. Adopt policies that emphasize development in safe infill locations, amend zoning regulations as necessary to provide for more housing in low-risk areas, and streamline permit processing for development in low-risk areas. Aligning public and private resources to support the construction of affordable housing in these areas is imperative for successful, long-term, wildfire risk mitigation. In recognizing that some development will likely still occur in the WUI, policies should distinguish between areas that are already developed where urbanization could be further encouraged, and undeveloped areas where conservation efforts—like permanently protecting greenbelts—should be pursued.
• Accelerate greenbelts as nature-based solutions to wildfire resilience and risk reduction. Prioritize greenbelts as a strategic defense against wildfire. Policies should require or strongly encourage the conservation of undeveloped land in high fire risk areas to create defensible space and natural wildfire buffers, and to preserve the rich biodiversity in wildfire-prone areas. Policies for proactive vegetation management should be developed and Best Management Practices for natural and working lands should be established by region and habitat type. Management plans should take a balanced approach including prescribed burning, selective harvest, non-commercial thinning, grazing, and traditional forest treatment as practiced by tribes. Consulting with local Tribal Governments where feasible is important to consider when identifying, establishing, and stewarding greenbelts for wildfire defense and resilience.
• Update and strengthen WUI land-use policies and building codes. Encourage the use of a multi-hazard approach in considering where new development should be either encouraged or discouraged. Support development of uniform standards and resilient growth management strategies for towns and cities with homes currently located in the WUI. Policies should include programs to harden existing structures (including financial assistance for low-income communities for home hardening), develop standards for the creation and preservation of defensible space, and create fire-safe road conditions, evacuation plans, and hardened community refuges of last resort (e.g. schools or hospitals). Available data supports aggressive policy-making in this area as home hardening and defensible space close to the home have proven to be the most important measures that can be taken to reduce the chances of ignition from embers and approaching wildfires.
• Maintain partnerships, coordinate complementary programs to incentivize risk reduction, and enhance compliance and enforcement with existing policies. Support regional planning efforts, as well as the incorporation of wildfire protection and resilience policies into city and county General Plans in Safety, Housing, Transportation, and Sustainability Elements. Advocate for the adoption of complementary policies at the regional, county, city, community, and parcel scale.
• Conduct broad stakeholder engagement, especially with Indigenous peoples who have familiarity and traditional knowledge of the land. Land rights, recognition, and repatriation should be considered in direct and specific engagement with Tribal Governments through a formal engagement process and should align with their priorities and decisions when identifying greenbelt lands for permanent protection, particularly when public funds are at play.

Policy Matrix