Patch Primer: Fighting Fires Before They Start

Battalion Chief Scott Barnes has a dream, and a Blithedale Canyon resident is helping him make it a reality.

Barnes, who oversees the department’s Vegetation Management Program, is constantly looking for ways to spread the word about the importance of creating “defensible space” around homes in our densely wooded city. Such space, he said, could be the difference between a contained wildfire and a catastrophe.

As we begin another fire season, Barnes has partnered with a homeowner to create defensible space around her home to serve as a demonstration for what it looks like and why it’s necessary. Over a two-week period, a contractor with the department removed vegetation within 100 feet around the home.

“It’s important for people to understand that it doesn’t mean that your land is going to look like it was completely cleared of all vegetation,” Barnes said. “We create islands of vegetation instead of just removing everything. You still have that park-like setting but you’re reducing the fire fuel.”

The demonstration home is adjacent to acres and acres of open space that is densely covered by the kinds of vegetation that kickstart a fire: manzanita, madrones and chamise. Such vegetation, Barnes said, create fuel ladders, which allow a wildfire to climb up from the ground and into trees and potentially the roves of nearby homes.

Reducing that vegetation will slow down a wildfire, allowing firefighters time to combat it, he said.

“When a fire is coming down from the top of that hill, I want it to be able to slow it down a little bit so I can put out the hot spots as it’s coming down,” Barnes said.

The two-week demonstration project assuaged the initial reluctance of the homeowner, who requested anonymity so she didn’t get a parade of people showing up at her door to see the project in person. 

The accompanying photos show the vegetation around the demonstration home both before and after the project to show the difference. 

The demonstration home is just one of a slew of Mill Valley Fire Department projects that target vegetation management. The Vegetation Management Program has an annual budget of $300,000, which pays for things like regular neighborhood “chipper days” that have resulted in 32 tons of vegetation getting removed and chipped down over the past year. It also goes to regular vegetation clearing along city roads, removal of fuel-heavy Eucaplyptus trees and trees that succumb to Sudden Oak death and maintenance if the city’s Steps, Lanes and Paths.

The program also includes fuel break maintenance along Blithedale Ridge Fire Road and Old Railroad Grade Fire Road, in which a virtual ring of clearing is created around the city that would slow down a potentially devastating wildfire.

The demonstration home is the latest of Barnes’ efforts to drive home the importance of creating defensible space. He hopes to convince residents and neighborhood associations to spread the word, eventually getting all Mill Valley residents to create defensible space around their homes.

“Now if we can get every house that borders open space to do this, I’ll die a happy man,” he said.