Senator Ben Allen Hosts Virtual Wildfire Preparedness Workshop

By LILY TINOCO | Reporter

Senator Ben Allen, whose district covers much of the Westside and South Bay regions of Los Angeles County, including Pacific Palisades, hosted a virtual wildfire preparedness workshop on Tuesday, October 20.

Allen was joined by Senator Henry Stern, Co-president of the North Topanga Canyon Fire Safe Council Beth Burnam and California State Fire Marshal Kate Dargan Marquis to address “Surviving the 2020 Fire Season.”

Marquis explained the purpose of fire safe councils, which exist all throughout the state, and that the California Fire Safe Council is a statewide nonprofit that helps local councils receive grants. These can be established anywhere and ideally would work together toward building a resilient community.

She went through a presentation of slides, focusing the conversation on how one can defend their home from the inside out.

Marquis explained that the area right around the base of a house should be clear and clean of flammable vegetation and materials, and one should be mindful of where embers can enter: “The embers and the embers that collect … then go on to expose your house because they create higher heat sources.”

Examples include pine needle litter, debris that gathers in the gutter or roof, and the landscape area that surrounds a fence—all of these can ignite, Marquis shared, and set an entire house on fire.

Marquis suggested a number of solutions that are tested and certified by the state fire marshal’s office to prevent ember ignition, including installing ember-resistant vents, vents with paint that close off when subjected to heat or roof vents that keep embers from entering a house. Allen suggested non-flammable roofing and exterior sprinklers.

Allen and Stern then shed some insight on their discussions at the state level, keeping focused on wildfires.

“Due to the unprecedented nature of the pandemic, the legislature scaled back proceedings and focused our efforts on priority issues, such as the COVID-19 responses, homelessness … ” Allen said, “but I will say that Senator Stern really kept his eye on the prize on this issue.”

Allen said focusing entirely on forests, dead trees or habitat clearance projects far from communities most at risk may actually have little value during wind-driven fires. These actions have guaranteed more catastrophic losses by largely affecting wildlife and ecosystems.

He said there is a strong home ignition issue that needs to be addressed.

“We need to reduce the flammability of existing communities and … [have] tough conversations about whether we should continue to build deeper and deeper into very high-fire severity zones,” Allen said.

He said there are a few bills that he and Stern are hoping to get across the finish line, including SB-182, to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire damage to communities by strengthening local planning requirements and guidelines for permitting development in very high-fire hazard areas.

“This was ultimately vetoed by the governor, he thought this was going to work against the state’s housing goals,” Allen said. “We certainly believe in the importance of more housing … but we [have] to be mindful about not putting Californians in harm’s way.

“We’ve got to keep thinking about policies to address building in these very high-risk zones.”

Allen said he and Stern are committed to addressing and mitigating against a lot of the challenges presented.

Stern said they will be back soon to help others get involved and get through the 2020 fire season.