wildland urban interface – Enviro Updates

Santa Rosa approves redrawn fire hazard maps

May 13, 2026

Paulina Pineda, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Roughly 3,100 more properties fall within risk zones; opponents fear insurance rate hikes

Santa Rosa leaders approved updates to the city’s fire hazard areas in what they described as a push to better safeguard the city from another destructive wildfire.

About 3,100 properties across parts of Bennett Valley and in Oakmont will be added to the city’s so-called wildland urban interface, or WUI, under the expanded boundaries.

The approval Tuesday by a 6-0 vote came over objections from a group of residents who have raised questions about the process used to craft the maps and the implications for their properties.

The neighbors, who live in the area surrounding Matanzas Creek south of Hoen Avenue, worry they could see property insurance rates rise or lose coverage altogether by being included in the updated boundaries.

Climate Change & Energy, Forestsfire safety vegetation rules, Santa Rosa, wildfire hazard, wildland urban interface

North Bay communities lose tens of millions in federal funding for wildfire preparation work

May 21, 2025

Marisa Endicott, PRESS DEMOCRAT

As peak wildfire season arrives, Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties are scrambling to address the loss of key FEMA grants for fire prevention work already underway.

The Brooktrails community sits in a rugged area of unincorporated Mendocino County a few miles west of Willits. Home to over 3,000 people, the neighborhood is packed in amid thick brush, forest and windy roads. Many of the homes are surrounded by abandoned overgrown lots, there’s one main route in and out and water is limited.

“It has been labeled one of the most fire dangerous communities in the state for a really good reason,” said Scott Cratty, executive director of the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council. “It’s got all the elements if fire gets in there to be very bad.”

In August, Mendocino County was awarded a $3.6 million grant through the federal Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program, the first phase of a $50-million project which would have gone to reducing fuels across roughly 1,500 acres of land and creating defensible space and retrofits for hundreds of homes in and around the Brooktrails area.

Sonoma and Napa counties also received multi-million-dollar BRIC grants for similar work to make homes less likely to catch and spread fire in a region increasingly prone to devastating blazes.

ForestsBRIC grants, defensible space, fire resilience, wildfires, wildland urban interface

Controversial bill to abolish California fire hazard rankings dies in Legislature

August 17, 2024

Hayley Smith, LOS ANGELES TIMES

A bill that sought to overhaul California’s system for wildfire hazard mapping has died in the state Assembly.

A bill that sought to overhaul California’s system for wildfire hazard mapping has died in the state Assembly.

Senate Bill 610, introduced in June by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), sparked heated debate over its plan to eliminate the decades-old system of ranking state and local lands as “moderate,” “high” or “very high” fire hazard severity zones — designations that influence development patterns and building safety standards based on an area’s probability of burning.

The plan instead would have empowered California’s state fire marshal, Daniel Berlant, to create a single “wildfire mitigation area” classification for California, which supporters said would simplify the system and create a uniform set of standards for wildfire preparation and mitigation.

Climate Change & Energy, Forests, Land Usedevelopment, wildfire hazard, wildland urban interface

A Newsom-backed bill to change California’s wildfire hazard rankings is taking heat. Here’s why

August 14, 2024

Ari Plachta, SACRAMENTO BEE

The bill would overhaul California’s ranking system for wildfire hazards.

A bill backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to overhaul California’s ranking system for wildfire hazards is taking heat from environmentalists and local governments, who argue the bill would lead to a dangerous increase in housing development in fire-prone areas.

Senate Bill 610 would replace the state’s existing, three-tiered, labeling system that rates communities based on their probability of burning with a single framework that would only identify whether or not an area requires “fire mitigation.”

The hazard ranking system is a key to local development processes, building safety standards and home defensible space requirements. Proponents say the reform would simplify a convoluted system and help expand compliance with those rules.

Climate Change & Energy, Forests, Land Usedevelopment, wildfire hazard, wildland urban interface

Op-Ed: California’s problems won’t be solved by building in wild areas

February 15, 2023

THE WASHINGTON POST

The Feb. 10 news article “Gentrification by fire” raised valid points but did not address some important issues on building housing in California’s wildland-urban interface.

California’s policies concerning development in the wildland-urban interface are incoherent. The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, whose members are appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), has issued minimum fire-safe regulations. For more than 30 years, the rules have required roads accessing new development to be wide enough so that incoming firefighting apparatus and fleeing civilians can pass each other concurrently. New development on dead-end roads more than a mile long is forbidden. In the past two years, the board was heavily lobbied by counties (including Sonoma County) and developers opposing road limitations for building in the wildland-urban interface, and the board proposed to eviscerate the regulations to allow commercial and residential development in fire-prone areas without safe evacuation routes. This approach failed when a group of retired firefighters lambasted the board’s willingness to jeopardize the safety of firefighters and the public.

Sound regulations remain in place, but the state does not enforce them, letting local jurisdictions ignore many of their protections. California’s housing crisis will not be solved by building in fire-prone rural areas; rather housing needs should be addressed by building as infill near transit hubs and safe evacuation routes.

Deborah A. Eppstein, Santa Rosa, Calif.

The writer is founding director of the State Alliance for Firesafe Road Regulations.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/15/california-building-wild-areas-fire-danger/

Climate Change & Energydevelopment, fire, wildfire evacuation, wildland urban interface

This impending state regulation could have huge implications for fire safety and development

February 19, 2022

Marisa Endicott, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Changes to the state development standards have sparked a heated debate.

The tension between development and safety in fire-prone areas is a hot-button issue in Northern California and my inbox.

A major factor that extends beyond a proposed project’s property lines is how new businesses and more people affect everyone’s ability to evacuate when the next big fire sparks.

Just last month, a judge blocked Lake County’s plans for a new luxury resort that failed to convincingly take into account how an extra 4,000 people on the roads might impact a fire evacuation in the area.

So, for today’s column, I want to focus on the state fire regulations going through a revamp that could dictate the landscape, literally, for years to come.

It’s a complex issue, which means I’m going to focus on just one piece of it — a piece that has raised alarms for some fire professionals.

Since 1991, there have been baseline safety standards for development in fire-prone areas managed by the state. As California faced increased wildfire threat, the legislature in 2018 expanded these rules — the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection’s minimum fire safe regulations — to very high fire hazard areas overseen by local jurisdictions, too.

This triggered a general makeover for the 30-year-old regulations that has led to 18 months of fierce debate and landed in a place that, according to a number of fire experts, weakens, rather than strengthens, safety standards.

The big fear: It could jeopardize safe escape from wildfires in the future.

“These regulations fail to provide adequate standards or State oversight and enforcement to ensure the safety of firefighters and civilians for firefighting and evacuation,” a group of wildfire professionals wrote about the latest draft to the Board of Forestry in a January letter.

Of particular concern are proposed changes to rules affecting the conditions and specifications of existing roads. Your eyes probably glossed over reading that sentence, but bear with me because the devil really is in the details.

Forests, Land Use, TransportationBoard of Forestry, fire-safe roads, wildfire evacuation, wildland urban interface

As disasters worsen, California looks at curbing construction in risky areas

June 4, 2021

Christopher Flavelle, THE NEW YORK TIMES

The state’s insurance regulator endorsed proposals that could reshape the real estate market, the latest sign of climate shocks hitting the economy.

At the start of wildfire season, California’s insurance regulator has backed sweeping changes to discourage home building in fire-prone areas, including looking at cutting off new construction in those regions from what is often their only source of insurance — the state’s high-risk pool.

The proposals, many of which would require approval by the State Legislature, could remake the real estate market in parts of California and are the latest sign of how climate change is beginning to wreak havoc with parts of the American economy.

On Friday, the insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, endorsed proposals that include halting state funding for infrastructure in certain areas prone to fire, leaving vacant lots undeveloped and the expansion of more stringent building codes.

“These ideas are going to be challenging,” Mr. Lara said at the beginning of a meeting of the Climate Insurance Working Group, which he established and which recommended the changes. “We are really going into uncharted territory.”

Climate Change & Energy, Land Useconstruction, development, fire danger, insurance, wildland urban interface