Cal Fire Using Alert Cams, Thinning To Not Get Burned This Year

REDWOOD CITY, CA -- Dousing fire risk in California is an ongoing task that requires constant thinning work as well as a continuous flow of moisture and ideas to combat wildfires.

It also takes creativity and the use of tools in the wilderness to help prevent the devastation California has seen in the last few years. 2018's fire events going down in the history books. For one, the Camp Fire in Butte County that broke out Nov. 8 represents the most destructive and deadliest wildfire, killing 86 people, destroying almost 20,000 structures and leveling the quaint town of Paradise.

California's wet winter doesn't necessarily help the cause when Mother Nature unloads all the precipitation at once. It's a double whammy.

First, it takes more than a barrage of wet weather in three months to keep the trees and ladder fuels from burning, if the spigot all of a sudden dries up. Secondly, if the rain hits late enough in the spring, it brings a multitude of brush and grasses that serve as more fuel to burn.

"Everybody thinks we've had a lot of (rainy) weather. That's not enough. We need to have significant (wet) weather every year to make up the difference," Cal Fire spokesman Scott McLean told Patch, while referring to countering four years of drought experienced within the decade. "The trees are not going to suck up all the moisture in one winter. We need a continuous flow."

The veteran fire official is hoping for a better summer and fall that will assist in erasing the memory of the Camp Fire, which he responded to on the first day when he rescued people amid a firestorm that nearly took out a unit of firefighters.

McLean and company are strategizing about what to do to minimize the risk and danger.

Cal Fire setting sights on alert cams

As one of 31 counties identified as being in high risk, Santa Clara has three fire alert cameras that can show the danger before and after the event of a raging wildfire. One is located on top of the towering Mount Hamilton in the Diablo Range overlooking Santa Clara Valley and another on Mount Umumum - located within the 18,000-acre Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve in the Santa Cruz mountain range. As the third location, Loma Prieta is situated 11 miles west of Morgan Hill.

"They're more tools for the toolbox," McLean said. "Everything helps."

The cameras were first installed in October 2014 with funding provided by Santa Clara County, Valley Water, Pacific Gas & Electric, Redwood Estates, Chemeketa Park, Aldercroft Heights, Loma Prieta Community Foundation and the Santa Clara County FireSafe Council. The county Board of Supervisors put up $25,000 in seed money.

"The intent was to do a pilot study to understand how well tower-mounted cameras could be used for early detection and monitoring of wildfires in remote fire prone parts of Santa Clara County," said Rick Parfitt, the private contractor staging, managing and maintaining the cameras.

"My ultimate goal is to see the state of California implement a statewide system that will mitigate the risks from wildfire and potentially reduce the loss of life and property," said Parfitt, who lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains where the potential of a devastating fire is high.

In other words, Cal Fire needs all the help it can get.

"We know some fires will get bigger with factors like wind, climate and fuel," said Scott Witt, deputy chief of fire plan and prevention grants. He bills the cameras as part of "the prescription" that won't necessarily eliminate the risk but helps with fire protection.

Witt cites recent fires in which embers have blown for miles.

Cal Fire Morgan Hill Battalion Chief Ivy Williams said the agency uses the camera to pan an area to verify the origin of a fire. When Parfitt's service, sees activity on the cameras, Cal Fire dispatch stations get "pinged" to notify them of the looming danger. Dispatch centers in Northern California are located in Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.

"Typically, we get a 911 call first. From our standpoint, the smoke has to be pretty good to be seen on these cameras," she said. "Having the ability to have additional cameras added would be helpful to us because we do a lot with the verification."

High risk areas blanket California

With a list of 191 cities in 31 counties in California considered a high fire hazard dotting the California map like a dartboard, all the suggestions, money and resources are asked to come to bear what appears to be "a new normal, or abnormal" -- a phrase former California Gov. Jerry Brown coined.

See http://www.fire.ca.gov/fire_.

Gov. Gavin Newsom threw $305 million in additional funding at the problem in identifying 35 high-priority projects blanketing more than 90,000 acres.

No. 2 on the list lands in San Mateo County along Kings Mountain Road, an area winding up the wooded coastal mountains that affects a flourishing population of 271,096 people.

At No. 9, the East Bay's fuel break zone in north Orinda represents thinning that would help to keep over a half million people safe.

Coming in at No. 25, Aptos, more than 112,000 people may sleep better knowing crews are out tackling the Hinkley Ridgetop.

Climate change, an epidemic of dead and dying trees, and the proliferation of new homes in the wildland urban interface have magnified the threat, placing a substantial number of people and property at risk than in earlier decades.

More than 25 million acres of California wildlands are categorized as a "very high" or "extreme" fire threat, Cal Fire's recently-released fire assessment report.

More of Cal Fire's analysis including its priority project list can be found online at http://calfire.ca.gov/fire_pre.