The county is tapping Measure A parks and open space funds to pay for hiring a crew that would expand the county’s initiative to clear fire hazards from county-owned lands and bolster its firefighting corps.
For many years, the county had a crew working on removing fire hazards from open space lands. This second crew upgrades that strategy, hopefully enabling them to stay ahead of the hazard instead of having to play catch-up.
The recent Northern California wildland fires and the wide paths of death and destruction the flames created should be enough for Marin officials to take the initiative to try to improve safety.
Public lands overgrown with brush and trees are common across the county. For years, it’s been cheaper and easier just to let them grow.
In some cases, removal — even trimming — brought complaints from those who worry that such work, including the safe use of controlled burning, is harming habitat for native plants and habitat.
In past years, there have been incidents where the work of county wildland crews has drawn protests from conservation-focused activists.
Everyone needs to be on the same page. Lives depend on it.
The recent fires have rightly led officials to re-think their strategies.
Local officials have returned from the front lines of fighting those fires and witnessing the heartbreaking losses to rewrite and beef-up Marin’s strategy.
For years, officials have promoted greater fire-safety, but it’s time they do much more to help make Marin safer — across open space areas and closer to home — in the face of a real threat that has already proven its power.
The county needs to deploy a countywide strategy — and possibly a local tax increase to help pay for deploying it. Local fire departments already have in place a proven seamless “mutual aid” response to fires. That same level of countywide cooperation is going to be needed in developing a strong fire-safety strategy.
Investing $2.3 million over two years for a second fire crew is a major step, but hardly the solution.
By creating a more effective firebreak behind the homes that back up to open space lands, the county is creating space that could prove critical in slowing down a fire and stopping it. The space can help give firefighters the break they need to stop a wildland fire before it erupts into the furious infernos we’ve witnessed over the past two summers.
Officials are focusing on improved mapping and firefighting routes, as well as bolstering emergency notification and evacuation preparation.
They need to get the message across to property owners that they need to address possible hazards on their own property. But the county and other jurisdictions leading by example is a promising start.
Officials don’t want to turn firefighters into some sort of “plant police,” ordering people to remove hazardous landscape. For most homeowners, the fires in Santa Rosa and Paradise sent a sobering, commonsense message.
Others need to see examples of how having fire-fueling plants so close to their homes can be a threat to their lives and property — and quite possibly their neighbors’.
For some, the hurdle for doing the right and smart thing is financial and any tax plan needs to help make it easier for those homeowners to take commonsense action.
But trying to make our open spaces safer, especially as those closer to existing neighborhoods, is the right step for the county to take.
The county’s investment in a second fire crew is a wise one and it should pay dividends in providing an additional measure of safety. But an effective solution is going to take much more than county action; it’s going to require a countywide strategy involving not only every firefighting agency and jurisdiction, but state and federal parklands, as well.
The example they set is vital in building momentum and awareness needed to take the vital step of having homeowners more aware of commonsense safety measures they need to take, as well, that possibly could mean the difference between saving their homes, families and neighbors and the kind of heartbreaking losses we’ve witnessed.
———
©2019 The Marin Independent Journal (Novato, Calif.)
Visit The Marin Independent Journal (Novato, Calif.) at www.marinij.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
