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Countywide brush abatement program will include Saratoga

By Shannon Burkey

Saratoga residents who live in what fire officials refer to as a "hazardous fire area" will participate in a countywide brush abatement program this spring.

Saratoga's hazardous fire area, comprised of hillsides and their adjacent areas, is nearly everything west of Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road and south of Saratoga-Los Gatos Road. There are currently around 2,000 parcel owners in the hazard area, according to Saratoga Fire District battalion chief Joe Parker.

"The hazardous fire area was designated in 1991 and was definitely intended to include the hillsides. Fire burns faster in hilly terrain--that's just the physics of it. We wanted to include the hillside terrain because of that, but we also included some flat land in proximity to the hillsides," Parker said.

After the Oakland hills fire in 1991, many communities in the Bay Area, including Saratoga, began to realize the possibility of such a disaster occurring in their areas.

Although an abatement education and enforcement program has been in effect for several years in Saratoga, it was not fully implemented throughout the entire city.

Fire officials are now educating residents on the hazards of dead, flammable vegetation near their homes or other structures on their properties.

"This is important because we tend to forget after time goes by that what happened in Oakland could happen here," Parker said. "Under the right conditions, a fire can get away from us. We are trying to launch pre-emptive measures to help prevent area-wide conflagration."

In February, letters were sent to residents living in the hazard areas explaining the abatement program and what needs to be done to comply. Residents will need to remove all flammable vegetation a minimum of 30 feet from around their structures and remove pine needles and leaves from roofs and rain gutters. They must also remove dead leaves and branches from ornamental shrubs and trees and clear dead tree limbs that hang over rooftops.

"We are not asking people to bring things down to bare soil, just remove the dead native vegetation," Parker said. "For some people it may be a large undertaking, but for others who keep their property up pretty well, it may be just cleaning leaves from their gutters."

By April 1, residents must return the postcard enclosed in the letter to the fire department indicating their intent to remove the hazardous brush from their property. Residents can also opt to have a county contractor perform the work for a fee.

"In April and May we will begin to do inspections of properties to see if they complied," Parker said. "If they haven't complied by then, they will be left with a notice specifying the violation and given a second chance to do the work themselves."

But after that, if a home is not in compliance, a county contractor will be sent out to do the work at the owner's expense.

"This is just good safety practice for everyone," Parker said. "But when we get into a high fire area, we take it from wanting to see people do it to it being a necessity."

For more information on the fire abatement program, call 408.867.9001, ext. 304 or visit www.sccfiresafe.org.