West Valley wildfire prevention and safety

In California, we’ve learned that “fire season” can be a year-round threat, heightened during our hot, dry summers. To prepare, our County looks for opportunities all year that will help local communities keep their homes, families, and businesses safe.

This is particularly important here in the West Valley, where many folks live in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) zone that extends from the scenic and rugged — and fire fuel rich — Santa Cruz Mountains to the cities and neighborhoods on our western flank.

I’m gratified that my Board colleagues have unanimously supported my proposals to enhance fire prevention efforts in the West Valley, starting with an expansion of the Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District’s Pre-Fire Management and Wildfire Resilience program. (As a “dependent” fire district, SCCCFPD is governed by our County Board of Supervisors, which acts as the District’s Board of Directors.)

The Board added a dedicated Fuels Crew pilot program to clear brush and vegetation along evacuation routes and roads in the incorporated areas of the Fire District, which includes the cities of Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Cupertino, and a portion of Saratoga.

Second, we’ll be expanding a free “chipping” program that helps district residents create and maintain defensible space, and further reduces hazardous WUI fire fuels. Other new prevention and response efforts include:

• A Community Wildfire Program, with the addition of a specialist who will conduct inspections for residents living in high fire hazard areas, and provide guidance on creating defensible spaces around properties.
• An online data tool to run training simulations and to alert the public of evacuations with real-time information.

In addition, the Board unanimously approved my recent proposals to improve emergency services for our residents living in the Santa Cruz Mountains’ Loma Prieta community, as well as administrative agreements designed to protect and better manage fire-prone areas in County parks.

While these efforts focus on specific communities and properties, we understand all too well the boundary-crossing nature of wildfires. In 2020, the CZU Lightning Complex destroyed nearly 1,500 homes and businesses in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, engulfed the ancient redwood trees of California’s oldest state park, Big Basin Redwoods, and caused one fatality. Smoke affected the South Bay and other communities miles away, causing health risks and keeping residents indoors for weeks at a time. 

The work we do to prevent or thwart the spread of wildfire helps the entire County by ensuring:

• Healthier air quality, and reduced carbon release into the atmosphere;
• Maintaining higher levels in our reservoirs, and keeping fire-related sediment or carbon particles from running into our drinking water supply;
• Better protection of our shared open space, wildlife, and forests; and,
• Safer evacuation routes for everyone visiting, working, or living in our area.

As we are forced to confront increasingly intense wildfires, we need to keep pushing to take our prevention and community resiliency efforts to the next level. We can — and will — do more. Frankly put, we have to.

Joe Simitian
Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors

This article was originally published in Los Gatos Magazine in Summer 2023.