Update for Contra Costa County's Community Wildfire Protection Plan - Almost Complete!
Parks are valuable community resources which include historic structures that are vulnerable to wildfire like the John Muir house in Contra Costa County.
A Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is a collaboratively developed plan that identifies wildland fire hazards, prioritizes ways to reduce those hazards and recommends measures for homeowners and communities to reduce ignitability of structures. Diablo Fire Safe Council has been working with community members and agency partners throughout the year to update the existing Contra Costa County Community Wildfire Protection Plan which was adopted in 2009.
According to Diablo Fire Safe Council, the two key reasons to develop a CWPP are:
- The plan is an opportunity to influence where and how federal agencies implement fuel reduction projects on federal lands.
- The plan establishes priority for funding of hazardous fuel reduction projects.
The draft CWPP update also identifies additional benefits:
3. The opportunity to establish a locally appropriate definition and boundary for the wildland-urban interface (WUI).
4. Expedited National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures for federal agencies implementing fuel reduction projects identified in a CWPP. There are 3 national parks in Contra Costa County: John Muir National Historic Site, (Martinez); Rosie the Riveter-World War II Home Front National Historical Park (Richmond); and Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site (Danville).
Martinez, Richmond and Daville are all communities that are entirely or partially located within a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, based on an analysis done by CAL Fire for local responsibility area (LRA) lands.
Defensible space and fire resistant building materials are important for protecting all structures from wildfire -- residential, commercial and historic alike.
More information on the Contra Costa Community Wildfire Protection Plan update is available on the Diablo Fire Safe Council website.
To comment on the draft CWPP update , send an email to [email protected] .
The deadline for comments is September 17, 2014.
TOP BANNER PHOTO: The 14-room Victorian mansion, built by John Muir's father-in-law Dr. John Strentzel in 1883, is a central feature of John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez.
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NPS firefighters mopping up after the Chimney Rock Fire within 200 feet of the historic Lifeboat Station, NPS photo
Signal Flare Testing Ignites Chimney Rock Fire at Point Reyes National Seashore
In the late hours of Saturday, August 16 the United States Coast Guard Sector San Francisco received a report from a yacht on Drakes Bay that an errant signal flare from the flotilla of sailing vessels had landed in vegetation near the Historic Lifeboat Station near Chimney Rock and ignited a grass fire. The vessels had been conducting emergency signal flare testing. A group of artists overnighting at the Lifeboat Station also reported seeing the flames less than 100 yards from the wooden building.
Inverness Fire Department and Marin County Fire Department responded to the scene along with NPS ranger staff and quickly extinguished the blaze at approximately a quarter acre by about 1:30 a.m. NPS fire staff completed mop up later that morning.
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