As funds dry up, Oakland struggles to manage fire risk in hills

As the days turn drier in the Oakland hills and a major source of fire prevention funding evaporates, fire safety advocates say there are inadequate resources to combat the perennial risk of wildfire, especially on neglected public lands.

The threat this season could be especially perilous following ample growth of grasses and shrubs, driven by months of rain, that will soon dry out and create long wicks from which flames can soar and spread.

“We have a huge fuel load, and I’m at a zero fund balance,” said Vincent Crudele, who supervises the Oakland Fire Prevention Bureau’s vegetation management unit. “We know what we have to do, and we want to get it accomplished. We fully understand the consequences of what happens when it doesn’t get done.”

Scott Stephens, a fire science professor at UC Berkeley and co-director of the Center for Fire Research and Outreach, said that while some factors like late-season rains will help reduce the risks, “the grass just grew and grew” this winter, making fuel per acre roughly 1½ to two times the normal.

The loss of funding in Oakland has loomed ever since voters narrowly rejected a 2013 measure to support the efforts of the Wildfire Prevention Assessment District. The things the $65 parcel tax funded — like goat grazing to chomp away at dry grasses — have continued with leftover money that ran out this month. Now, fire prevention efforts that used to be supported by the special district are at the mercy of the City Council’s general fund appropriations.

Since the Oakland-Berkeley firestorm of 1991, properties in the “threat zone” of the East Bay hills must pass an annual inspection to ensure they have defensible space on their properties — a buffer that fire experts say could halt the onslaught of flames, saving homes and lives and giving firefighters an entry point of attack.

But residents frequently complain in online neighborhood forums and at town hall meetings that the city is failing to maintain its own lands. A city report in October, for instance, showed that almost a third of public property, from vacant lots on the side of roads to parks, failed to pass inspections.

The criticism and lobbing of double-standard accusations have only amplified in recent weeks, as bills went out to residents to collect overdue fines for failing previous inspections. Some residents say that their invoices were not correct and that no one communicated they would be coming. Collection efforts have been postponed amid the backlash.

Steve Hanson, a member of the citizen board that made recommendations for the wildfire prevention district, said the issue has brought together a lot of upset people.

“The fact is, if you tell a dog to stay off the table and you hit it 30 minutes later, it’s not going to learn the reward-punishment issue,” Hanson said. “If residents get a fine two years later, it’s not going to be a learning experience and you can’t expect them to be very happy about it.”

The committee’s chairwoman, Sue Piper, said the problem is not just that the city isn’t following the state fire code and setting a bad example for residents. It’s that public properties are not brought into compliance with the rules until midway through the high-fire season, she said.

“They have to abide by the same rules as I do,” said Piper, who served as former Mayor Jean Quan’s spokeswoman. A raging fire doesn’t distinguish between public and private land, she added, and the city is exposing itself to enormous liability should a wildfire disaster happen on its acreage.

But Crudele, of the Fire Prevention Bureau, said he simply does not have the resources to get every single city parcel into compliance and must therefore focus on the places that pose the biggest danger. He said he does so by looking at the type of vegetation, moisture levels, wind exposure, micro-climates, topography, number of nearby homes and the presence of potential ignition sources like power lines.

He and a few inspectors are responsible for overseeing the vegetation management of more than 16 square miles of public land, hundreds of miles of roadways, 2,000 vacant private properties and another 2,000-plus residences. The rest of the property inspections are divided among the fire stations in the vicinity — another source of grumbling among residents, who say that some firefighters are too strict and others too lenient.

“To be honest, I’m not even sure if my particular property should have passed, or if my neighbor’s should have,” Hanson said.

In the wake of 41 deaths from fires in city limits in the past six months, including at the Ghost Ship warehouse and a West Oakland halfway house, Mayor Libby Schaaf pledged to nearly triple the number of fire inspectors to prevent another tragedy.

But none of those inspectors deal with vegetation management, a much smaller unit of the Fire Prevention Bureau that will lose two positions now that the parcel tax doesn’t exist.

Some firefighters, like Lt. Dave Roberts, said wildfires in the terrain can be much more challenging to suppress than structure fires, and the risks should be given the proper attention.

“You’ve got water supply issues, you’ve got to scamper up the terrain and fight the fire on a steep slope, and who knows what’s underneath this growth or what footing you’ll find,” he said while on a recent inspection blitz, looking up uneasily at a particularly sharp incline, where a large log sat. “This is not good — you can’t have dead, dying fuel on your property.”

The issue of how the city should manage fire risks on its public land will be the subject of an intensive review in the coming year as a contractor develops a “vegetation management plan” for Oakland that aims to balance the concerns of fire safety hawks, who want everything cleared and sometimes advocate herbicide use, against those of certain environmentalists, who want everything outdoors to be left alone.

Crudele said the plan will help the city figure out what strategies to use, where and when to deploy them, and who should be responsible. Goats can’t graze everywhere, he said, as much as people like them.

“Until an event like a wildfire has been witnessed firsthand, people don’t understand the absolute destructive power it can have on a community,” he said. “A wildland fire driven straight into residential homes will destroy everything in its path. … By the time it gets to your door, the flames are 100 feet tall. You stand there, and it just growls.”