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Californians love their mountains and canyons. People who live in the city seek respite from urban life. Many take a day or two to escape the city for the mountains, within easy driving distance. Still others move from the city to live in or near these wildland areas. The challenge is to find the right balance among three competing needs: to preserve our natural resources, to protect the visitors to these areas as well as the nearby residents, and to allow reasonable access for the public. With California's current climate and budget challenges, achieving that balance is extremely difficult. A severe drought creates a fire season that never ends. California is in the midst of an extended drought - the worst in 30 years. The dry vegetation resulting from the drought creates lots of fuel for fires - and, as a result, California has had lots of them. In 2007, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection ("Cal Fire") reports there were 3,610 fires that burned almost 435,000 acres - almost double the number of acres recorded in 2006 or the 5-year average. The number of structures destroyed in 2007 topped 3,000; the tragic San Diego fires accounted for 2,587 of those, with the Malibu Corral Canyon fire the next most severe, at 80 structures. There was no slackening of the pace in 2008. One coastal community newspaper reported that during a 6-week period last summer, there were 1,781 fires burning in California, engaging more than 200,000 firefighting personnel. The costs — your costs — of fire suppression. In the fiscal year from June 2007 through June 2008, the state's cost of fighting fires was $298.3 million. This is a figure with which we should all be familiar because you, as a California taxpayer, pay for this service no matter how foolish or preventable the cause of these devastating wildfires. You pay. And to do so, you forfeit other things in your budget - things like funding to schools and the disabled and your local communities (which, by the way, have their own huge costs associated with fighting fires that occur in their areas). In late June 2008, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called on then-President Bush to declare a state of emergency for the state as a result of the lightning-caused fires sweeping California from Santa Barbara to Mendocino. The President agreed, and additional equipment and personnel were made available. The citizens of California appreciated the assistance - but the bill to all California taxpayers still was in the tens of millions of dollars. People, nature and fires: Can they be safely managed? Sadly, the destruction wrought by California wildfires is frequently caused or exacerbated by human activity -- legal or otherwise. A 2008 series about wildfires in the Los Angeles Times states that they "are natural processes that become disasters because of human decisions." Therefore, it is essential that we assign sufficient rangers to monitor the use of our open spaces, to prevent illegal fires and to get on top of any fire that ignites as quickly as possible. In addition, to protect the visitors to our public parks and adjacent neighborhoods, we must adopt minimum safety and access standards for park and recreational facilities located in high fire hazard severity zones. This requires serious consideration of the uses that will be permitted in these areas (camping, picnicking, hiking, etc.), as well as insistence on safe vehicular access, emergency evacuation routes and strong brush clearance programs. Malibu leads the way and adopts a fire-safe policy. Malibu welcomes more visitors each year than other similar-sized communities. A more dubious distinction is that Malibu has more experience with catastrophic wildfires than most other places in California. The 2007 Corral Canyon blaze, which cost nearly $6 million to contain and resulted in the loss of more than 50 homes and 30 other structures, was traced to an illegal campfire in a poorly supervised state park. Malibu has a powerful interest in protecting its visitors and its residents from the dangers and costs of wildfires - and understands all too well that a public facility can create enormous public risks if it is poorly located, planned or managed. The Malibu City Council took a bold stand and decided that allowing camping and intensive public uses in high fire areas created too great a risk to visitors and neighbors. Malibu's exemplary policy comes under attack. »» |
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