Residents jam Marin fire prevention forum after North Bay devastation

Feb. 11--A standing-room-only crowd of more than 300 Marin residents packed a town hall Saturday, all intent on finding ways to "step up their game" on wildfire preparedness in the wake of October's deadly fires in Sonoma and Napa counties.

"Last year's fires were the deadliest and most destructive in state history," said state Assemblyman Marc Levine, who convened the town hall at College of Marin's Kentfield campus. "It's real important to know how much our own communities in Marin have done to be prepared."

The two-hour event, which included two first responders panels and a host of comments by local civic and emergency operations leaders, offered a range of fire preparedness tips that people can act on now, before a disaster occurs.

"We all know we live in a high-fire-danger area," said Marin County Supervisor Katie Rice, a board member of FireSafe Marin. "I don't think we've all taken it as seriously before as we do now.

"We need to step up our game," she added.

Rice and other county supervisors will conduct a second fire preparedness town hall from 6 to 8 p.m. March 6 at the Marin County Civic Center, 3501 Civic Center Drive in San Rafael.

"Our fire season is becoming year-round with the weather changing," said Supervisor Dennis Rodoni. "The homes that were saved in the North Bay fires were the ones that had defensible space around them."

Among the tips offered Saturday were those on creating 100 feet of defensible space around a home, assembling a "grab and go" bag, enlisting neighbors for an evacuation plan, helping older or infirm neighbors to clear brush, signing up for text or phone notifications through AlertMarin.org, investigating creating a FireWise community , obtaining state-sponsored fire insurance and signing up for an evacuation drill with the local fire department.

"I thought it was very helpful," said Elaine Biagini of Marinwood, of the event. "I got the idea (during the meeting) to check in with our fire chief to ask him for help in setting priorities on what are the most important things that we can reasonably accomplish."

Biagini, chair of the steering committee for Marinwood's community emergency response team, said the 1,700-home community could use a lot of education and assistance in fire preparedness.

"I want to find a reasonable thing that every family can do to be successful," she said.

Younger families

Ellen Kaufman of Tam Valley said she thought the town hall was "great," and offered "very valuable information."

At the same time, however, she said she wished that younger families who couldn't make it to Saturday's event could also benefit.

"From looking around the room, most people are my age or older," she said. "They really need to get this information to the younger families -- I know they're busy with soccer practice -- but they really need to come to these meetings, or we need to reach out to them through the schools."

Mill Valley Fire Chief Tom Welch, himself a North Bay fire victim when his home in the Coffey Park neighborhood of Santa Rosa was leveled in the Tubbs fire, said the city has already taken steps to improve evacuation routes, such as street striping and easing tight turning angles.

Such work is necessary but challenging on Marin's country-style roads, said Welch, a panelist at Saturday's event.

"Like most of Marin, the infrastructure here was built to handle horses and buggies," he said. "It hasn't changed much since then."

Local fire departments can provide help with evacuation plans and schedule evacuation drills, Welch added.

"Are you ready to go?" he said. "Do you have a 'grab and go bag?'" "Do you know two ways to get out -- driving. Or, if that doesn't work, walking?"

Residents may also contact the fire stations for a vegetation inspection to see if they have created enough defensible space, he said.

Helping seniors

In response to a question from the audience on fire evacuations at assisted living or senior care centers, Marin County Fire Chief Jason Weber said the whole community needs to look at helping seniors -- either those in a care facility or seniors living at their own homes.

"A lot of folks are not physically able to do the defensible space clearing -- and they don't have the finances to pay a tree company to come in," Weber said. Seniors also may have trouble moving fast enough during speedy evacuations -- such as what happened Oct. 8 when the Tubbs fire blew in with gale-force winds.

"How can we address Marin's non-ambulatory mobility issues?" Weber said. "We have 250,000 residents and 40 engine companies."

Weber said the North Bay fires and the Thomas wildfire last year in Southern California have altered thinking statewide about the need for adjusting upwards the "millions" spent on fire prevention and preparedness relative to the "hundreds of millions" spent putting out fires.

"It's a paradigm shift," he said.

Fire alerts

In addition to engaging residents, neighbors, friends, firefighters and civic leaders, local farm animals can help too. A cooperative network of Marin agencies is using sheep and goats to munch on brush around the county to create 100 acres of fuel breaks from Sleepy Hollow to Lucas Valley, said Todd Lando, program coordinator for FireSafe Marin.

"It's very cost-effective," he said.

Controlled burns are also planned, but last year's weather in October -- the optimum time for such burns -- was obviously the wrong timing, said Ben Nicholls, Cal Fire division chief. Cal Fire has plans to burn 20,000 acres over the course of a year -- but only weather permitting, he said.

"Mother Nature is a force that can not be pushed back on," Levine said.

Rodoni said he was glad to see that a majority of Saturday's attendees raised their hands to say that they had already signed up for text or phone notifications through AlertMarin.org.

"Tens of thousands of Sonoma County residents signed up for alerts -- after the (fire) event," Rodoni said. "We don't want to be in that same boat."

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