Nevada County Fire Plan

Is the Fire Plan about our safety, control of property rights or grant money? There is plenty of evidence to support your choice. The current draft is a 118-page document covering all of the above. Most of us here are aware of the fire danger we face each year. We live out in the “Wildland-Urban Interface” (woods) because we want to. Generally, we do the necessary maintenance to keep our property fire safe. We understand the fuel ladder concept and the term defensible space. All of us should do our best to keep our weeds down, our trees trimmed up, remove dangerous brush and interrupt the fuel ladder. Further, we need planned escape routes, acceptable shelters and numerous, available water sources. If the Fire Plan dealt with these issues alone, there would be far less concern on the part of the citizens and the Plan would not be 118 pages of bureaucratic shell games.

We are protected by 9 different Fire Districts, two City Fire Departments, Cal-Fire, United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (Sec.1-3 Fire Plan). In addition, we have a County Fire Marshal who has specific duties that include: enforce, inspect and review projects based on fire safety codes and regulations under county jurisdiction, ultimately reporting to the Board of Supervisors. Five other local fire districts also assume Fire Marshal duties and responsibilities based on their jurisdiction. Finally, the County Fire Chiefs association also reviews local, county and state Fire Safety Codes. To sum up, we have in place (LRA’s) Local Responsibility Areas, (SRA’s) State Responsibility Areas, and (FRA’s) Federal Responsibility Areas. All of these organizations have their own jurisdictions and many overlap, particularly in the areas of the Fire Marshal, Planning and Building Standards (Sec. 1-1).

The Fire Plan places responsibility for fuels issues with private property owners in the unincorporated area of the county. “All private and public land owners need to accept stewardship responsibilities, whether by regulatory process or not, to fully address the complex wildfire problem” (Summary-2). “Citizens are responsible for ensuring their family, personal needs and domestic animals are adequately prepared to evacuate or shelter safely and efficiently during an emergency” (Sec 1-9). “ The County of Nevada is not required by State or Federal regulations to provide fire protection services for the public and assumes no authority for providing this service” (Sec.1-3). All of this would appear to indicate that, should a fire start on your property and the county or local government blame it on you, they will. And yet the County bureaucracy wants to maintain control by asserting, “local and county governments assume responsibility to protect and assure safe development of private property in wildland areas”(Sec. 1-10), “local government has the responsibility and authority to ensure public safety and to provide the ordinances and policies to meet this requirement”(Sec.2-1). There is a management adage that says, “You cannot give someone the responsibility without the commensurate authority”. But the Fire Plan does just that. Appendix A of the plan defines the four vegetative type zones that we live in. Further, it gives us instructions of what to do in each type to make it fire safe. Appendices B and C require that none of this can be done with mechanical equipment and must be done by hand within 100 feet of a water course or riparian area. By hand currently means weed eaters, chainsaws and lawn mowers. It is clear that the terms mechanical equipment and by hand need to be more defined. There are also prohibitions based on soils, endangered species, archeology, nesting birds and aesthetics, etc. The problem is that, you, who are responsible for the steward ship of your land, can only do it in a manner that is almost impossible and always under the watchful eye of county government. So, is it for our safety? Partially yes, but mostly no. It is about the preservation of special interest areas at the expense of all else.

Is the Fire Plan about money? Definitely yes. Section 1-10, and 1-11 speak to Public Resources code 4290 that establishes minimum development standards in the unincorporated areas. PRC 4291 discusses defensible space. Section 4-1 directs our attention to the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 and many other plans. The DMA “stipulates that local governments must develop plans to address disasters…. in order to maintain Federal grant eligibility”, “Local governments must have a mitigation plan as a condition of disaster assistance.”(Sec. 4-2). “The importance of developing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan is to identify potential projects to minimize a potential wildfire disaster and show that communities are identifying federal hazardous areas in order to receive federal funding for these projects.” (Sec. 4-3).

It is clear to anyone who reads the current draft of the Fire Plan that County bureaucracy is directing its focus on establishing environmental controls on property owners of a type that were defeated several years ago. Secondly it is clear that this Plan’s main purpose is to establish the necessary credentials to secure the County’s place at the government feeding trough. Finally, the Fire Marshal’s office is building a fiefdom never intended, with control over building, development, house structure, planning, grading, landscaping and property stewardship. It concerns this writer that the County boldly states that it is not responsible for your fire protection and that you most definitely are. Yet, it also proclaims that it is responsible for public safety and is using this premise to force an additional plan upon us solely for the purpose of establishing eligibility for grant money. I would prefer that the county get into the fire business with a County Fire Department whose sole responsibility would be to extinguish fires.

The written comment period on the Plan ends February 5th and the presentation with a public comment period is February 12th. I urge everyone to get a copy of this plan and read it thoroughly so as to understand its positives and negatives. Furthermore, put Feb.12th on your calendar and plan to speak on the plan at the BOS meeting. You have 3 minutes. This Plan affects us all and needs our closest attention.