Emergency Forum Aims to Prepare Residents for Devastating Fire

    Are Orindans prepared for a catastrophic fire? And if so, how prepared are they?
    Those seem to be the most pressing questions on people’s minds these days, and they were the topic of a recent emergency preparedness forum led by key players who could provide answers.
    In a hall packed with more than 70 attendees, the forum focused on the worst-case scenario for a wildfire in Orinda. Hosted by the Orinda Association, the May 23 forum featured Moraga Orinda Fire District (MOFD) Fire Chief Dave Winnacker, Orinda Police Chief Mark Nagel and Duncan Seibert, program manager of Lamorinda Community Emergency Response Team and chair of the Lamorinda Emergency Preparedness Commission. 
    “The threat that we are primarily concerned about is a catastrophic regional wildfire emanating out of the wilderness of the Briones watershed to our north, carried by a Diablo wind in the fall, a north or northeast wind,” said Winnacker. “Those winds are not necessarily characterized by high temperature, which is something of a misnomer in the public’s perception. Ambient temperatures are not a critical element in fire spread. Low humidity and high winds are.”
    Typically, Diablo winds occur in the fall, but due to climate change, the winds are now preceding the rainy season. “Last year, when the Camp Fire burned, that area was expected to have five inches of precipitation as of that date. Had those sparks come off those power lines after three, four or five inches of precipitation had fallen for the season, they would have landed in a puddle and there wouldn’t have been a fire,” said Winnacker.
    Using Orindan John Radke’s work with the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management and UC Berkeley data, MOFD created models of fires starting at Bear Creek Road and Happy Valley at the eastern end of Briones Reservoir with 30 mph winds and low fuel moisture.
    “What that model shows is in about four hours most of Sleepy Hollow and the Downs would be consumed by fire and the primary evacuation route from the Downs will be impacted by direct flame impingement and therefore be closed to traffic. That’s a pretty scary scenario,” said Winnacker. “So the next thing done, armed with 37 years of data that goes down to the individual species of vegetation, is to make recommendations for mitigation work within 30 feet of the shoulder on both sides of Bear Creek Road.”
    With all conditions being equal, the new model shows that the fire will not jump Bear Creek. “What would have been a catastrophic fire running through about 1,000 homes in North Orinda and down through Sleepy Hollow instead becomes an interesting column of smoke and the loss of some grass range land that will regrow with the onset of the next rains,” said Winnacker.
    This second model is what MOFD, the East Bay Municipal Utility District and the Contra Costa Fire Department are working toward with the North Orinda Fuel Break. “This will create an interruption in the continuity of the fuel on the northern edge of the district that will buy us time to prevent a fire from spreading into the populated areas that we are concerned with,” said Winnacker.
    However, the North Orinda Fuel Break only addresses the ground component of fire. Fire also spreads through three-dimensional ember paths, flaming objects that can be blown miles in advance of the main body of the fire.
    “When those embers come to ground, if they land on receptive fuel beds, a pile of leaves, on a lot with dead grass, a gutter that’s filled with some form of dry matter, it can create a fire in its own right which can grow to be just as dangerous as the main fire. There is no fuel break that can stop the spread of three-dimensional ember paths,” says Winnacker.
    The only way to stop the spread of three-dimensional ember paths is to create defensible space. “Every resident must do defensible space work both to remove fuel immediately adjacent to your house, which will elevate the ground component, but also along your entire property. The entire parcel has to be cleared so that if an ember lands, it is less likely to start another fire.”
    The process of making your home defensible is straightforward. “Take a lap around your house right next to the perimeter and foundation. Check if there are accumulations of dead grass, dried leaves, dead or decadent plants such as rosemary. With those sorts of things next to your house, you are creating conditions for a fire to start right next to your house,” said Winnacker. “No matter what your house is made of, if there is direct flame impingement on it, eventually it will burn.”
    The next step is to go around your house a second time, but looking at the eaves. Are there collections of dead materials, specifically pine needles and leaves in the valleys of your roof and your gutters. If you have those on your roof, you are creating a second fuel bed on your house itself. That’s not a fire that we’re going to be able to put out under these circumstances,” adds Winnacker. Most of the qualities that make plants drought resistant also make them very dangerous from a fire standpoint.
    Nagel spoke about the Contra Costa County Community Warning System (CWS). CWS is one of the nation’s most modern and effective all-hazard public warning systems. It uses a countywide telephone notification system, in addition to Twitter, Facebook and email to alert residents to possible hazards. In the event of an evacuation, “this is what we use to tell you to go. You need to sign up for it. It’s a simple process. You go to the website, you click on the buttons and fill out the information. It’s that simple,” said Nagel.