City Ramps Up Fire Safety Efforts

Leo Coppeta wasn't just being a good neighbor as he tossed bunch after bunch of severed bay tree limbs and Scotch Broom from a pickup truck to the growing pile of neatly stacked vegetation amassed along a road in his West Blithedale Canyon neighborhood.

It's a means of self preservation.

"If you follow the history of Mill Valley, you know we're on borrowed time," Coppeta said. "Everybody is concerned with fire issues. It's not if. It's when."

Coppeta, a four-year Mill Valley resident, spent part of a recent weekend volunteering at a "chipper day" event, one of several popping up throughout the city offering locals the chance to rid their yards of dangerous fire fuels for a date with the chipper machine.

A wetter-than-normal spring may have extended the lifespan of the city's green hillsides by a few weeks, but a network of community, city and fire department programs remains vigilant against the constant threat of a catastrophic wildfire that hovers over Mill Valley.

In fact, the late-season rainfall only adds to the threat as officials face thicker tinder potential in the hills, a normal summer fire season on the horizon and little concern at home.

"The extra rain we had means our fire season starts a little bit later in the year (and) grasses are taller than they are, but they will all be dry later," said Mill Valley Battalion Chief Scott Barnes, a 19-year department veteran who oversees the fire department's vegetation management program. "The potential for a more active fire exists because the fuel is taller and thicker."

Barnes says the city is ripe for wildfire because of its topography of hillside homes set deep into the wildland, weaving set of narrow roads and location on the southern slope of Mount Tamalpais.

"What makes us unique among the communities living around Mt. Tam (is) the south aspect gets the most sun throughout the day so grass, trees and brush dry out a lot faster," he said. "We have more brush, more chaparral, on the slopes of Mt. Tam."

In the years following the horrific Oakland hills blaze of 1991 that destroyed 3,000 homes and killed 25 people in a region of striking similarities, Mill Valley fire crews, city and county agencies and enterprising citizens enacted various programs designed to prevent as well as prepare for such an event.

Besides neighborhood chipping days, vegetation management projects are in almost constant motion. City roads, fire roads, ridgetops and the canyon floor are cleared in fire break rings. Homes and cars are tagged for not following designated defensible space clearing and parking, respectively. Residential evacuation plans have been put in place using upgraded steps, lanes and pathways dotting the city's hills.

"This is a freeway compared to what it was 10 years ago," said Mill Valley Fire Capt. Clint Mason, surveying the wide swath of land the fire road cut along the Blithedale Canyon ridgetop.

State wildfire scientists are predicting a "normal" wildfire season, based on the combination of late season moisture and thicker brush levels, according to the Northern California Geographic Area Coordination Center statistics.

Mill Valley has been fortunate to go 80 years without a major wildfire. The last one was a 1929 blaze that torched 2,500 acres of Mt. Tam's southern slope and destroyed 117 homes in three days. Between 1859 and 1932, the city was hit with eight major wildland fires. Fire officials estimate the amount of fire fuel on the mountain has tripled from what it was in 1929.

Barnes says that 4,526 tons of dangerous fire fuel vegetation has been cleared in Mill Valley in the past decade, including 137 tons this year alone. But the city's annual budget for vegetation management and evacuation planning has risen along with the threat. In 1996, the city had a $15,000 annual budget for such measures, but the approval of a municipal services tax in 1997 and its renewal in 2008 has bumped that to $300,000 annually.

"It is definitely high on the list of the community priorities," said Mill Valley Mayor Stephanie Moulton-Peters. "I do think we are doing what we can do to prepare for this. Can we do more? We can always do more."

City officials say that residents need to step up their vegetation pruning, tree limbing and clearing. Residents are required to keep flammable fuels a minimum of 30 feet from the house, up to 100 feet or more on slopes.

"A lot of houses in forest fires burn because of ember production from a tree half a mile away, falling onto a woodshake roof (or) newspapers on the back porch," Barnes said. "It's the little things. They need to have good housekeeping around the house."

That housekeeping needs to be matched by a clear understanding of evacuation plans, Barnes says. Working alongside Coppeta, longtime Mill Valley resident Scotty Holt said fire officials have told him not to depend on getting out by car in the event of an emergency fire evacuation. "They've told us to run," he said.

Victoria Talkington, the city's 2010 Citizen of the Year for her tireless advocacy of the network of graded stairs and pathways that traverse the city's upper region, says a second edition printing of the city's steps, lanes and paths (available for $5 at the community center, city hall and library among other places) includes newly restored pathways and the blue thermal plastic "E" decals that adorn them.

Katherine Randolph teaches a free two-hour fire safety workshop called "Fire in Mill Valley!" that hopes to educate residents as much as possible on evacuation plans.

"I think anybody who sits through the class is concerned and understands what the risk is. Others who haven't been through the Oakland fire or the Vision fire (Marin's last major wildfire, destroying 12,076 acres on Inverness Ridge in 1995) are kind of clueless," she said.

The bottom line, says Barnes, is that residents should utilize city services to manage vegetation and educate themselves on evacuation plans.

"We recognize there is a fire danger here (and) with that recognition we are doing things to better our chances," he said. "I don't know if everyone is prepared. We do our best, but we can only do so much."

LEARN MORE:

Upcoming sessions of "Fire in Mill Valley," a free fire awareness class, will be from 4 to 6 p.m. Aug. 15; 7 to 9 p.m. Sept. 16; 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Mill Valley Community Center, 180 Camino Alto. For information or to register, call 269-6836 or e-mail: fireinmv@comcast.net

For information on the Mill Valley Emergency Preparedness Commission, visit www.bepreparedmv.org

For a copy of the city's new, second edition evacuation map, visit www.cityofmillvalley.org and search on "evacuation map." Maps can be purchased for $5 at local spots including Mill Valley City Hall, the Mill Valley Community Center and the Mill Valley Public Library.

Mill Valley will provide a chipper for multiple households or neighborhood associations to assist in removing flammable vegetation. For information, call the Mill Valley vegetation management hotline at 721-4367.

For information on the county wildfire protection program "Ready, Set, Go Marin," visit www.readysetgomarin.org

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