From the President

Happy holidays from the OFSC board!

It’s been a busy couple of months. On November 6, we held a well-attended community meeting to present information about our Neighborhood Ambassador program (and hopefully recruit more ambassadors), as well as introduce the Firewise USA program, which was one of the recommendations in the Fitch evacuation report. (See article below.) We were really pleased that Chief Josh Gordon was on hand to answer questions. This was the first of what we hope will be regular meetings about these two programs, which are critical for wildfire safety in our community. At the meeting, I was asked for a link to the National Volunteer Fire Council’s free online home assessment training, which I mentioned, so I’m providing that here. It’s very informative and won’t take too much of your time.

In this issue, we’re also including an article listing resources that can help with homeowner insurance if you’ve been dropped or are facing huge premium increases.

And we’re looking forward to some great things in 2024.

We've now been at the Cardiff farmers market for ten months (we’re there the first Saturday of every month). Because it’s proven a great way to meet neighbors and share information about wildfire preparedness, we intend to keep that momentum going in the new year. (Please stop by and see us on January 6.)

Next month, the Fire Safe Council of San Diego County will roll out a free educational home assessment program, and we’ll include an article about that in the next issue of The Firebreak. The assessment has been designed to help residents identify priorities for wildfire resilience and connect them to resources to increase their safety. This not only will be an excellent way to get expert feedback on how to protect your home from wildfire, but it will be mandatory before you can take advantage of the free defensible space clearance program the county fire safe council offers for senior, disabled and low-income residents and its free chipping program. (If you’re in a hurry to learn more, here’s the link from their website.)

We’re hoping to cohost a barbecue with the fire department sometime next spring, weather permitting, and we’ve also been talking about having a chocolate tasting as a fundraiser and educational forum for the community.

And finally, we’re thrilled to announce that we will offer the long-awaited Last Chance Survival Simulation Workshop next year, and it has been set for two consecutive Monday evenings, February 26 and March 4. We’ll share the details as we have them in the next issue of The Firebreak and with a special mailing, including how to reserve your spot. You won’t want to miss this, so mark your calendar now!

Now that we’ve reached the end of 2023, it’s your last chance this year to make a tax-deductible contribution to OFSC. OFSC is run entirely by volunteers, and our work is supported exclusively by grants and donations. Your generous contribution, of any size, will help us continue and even expand what we do in the coming year. Click here to donate through PayPal, or see “Support” below for a snail mail address if you’d rather send us a check or use Zelle.

Thanks so much in advance for supporting the Olivenhain Fire Safe Council!

We hope you have a fabulous, safe holiday season, and we’ll see you in 2024. 

—Sarah Lifton

P.S. Our next OFSC board meeting is Monday, December 11, at 7 pm, so please email me for the Zoom link if you'd like to attend.

Residents are introduced to the Neighborhood Ambassador and Firewise USA programs

Concerned residents gathered at the Meeting Hall the evening of November 6 to learn about OFSC’s Neighborhood Ambassador program and how it can be leveraged to create Firewise USA sites throughout the community—a strategy to help reduce the danger of wildfire in Olivenhain. They were joined by several OFSC board members and Encinitas fire chief Josh Gordon.

The evening began with an introduction to the Neighborhood Ambassador program, presented by OFSC’s coordinator for the program, Lou Obertreis. Neighborhood Ambassadors are volunteers who serve as leadership contacts in their neighborhoods to promote wildfire preparedness and share with their neighbors the most current wildfire prevention and preparedness information and resources from public safety agencies and organizations. The program’s philosophy is grounded in the idea of neighbors helping neighbors, and its purpose is to begin intensifying efforts to help the Olivenhain community prevent, prepare for, and mitigate wildfire-related emergencies and evacuations. It is also designed to also help identify the most vulnerable in the neighborhoods and facilitate aid as needed during emergencies.

Neighborhood Ambassadors embody the principle that we are our own “first responders” and help ensure that neighbors are prepared with vital information before and during an emergency. Their charge is to educate neighbors on wildfire safety and prevention practices to reduce the threat of wildfire through defensible space, home hardening, and personal or family evacuation plans. They identify fire safety issues in their neighborhoods, such as vegetation overgrowth, provide emergency links and information, and build a network within their neighborhoods to help disseminate preparedness education information and materials.

As wildfire safety leaders, Neighborhood Ambassadors are ideally positioned to facilitate the implementation of Firewise USA neighborhood by neighborhood in Olivenhain.

Firewise USA, a program of the National Fire Protection Association, provides a collaborative framework to help neighbors in a geographic area get organized, find direction, and take action to increase the ignition resistance of their homes and community and to reduce wildfire risks at the local level. Firewise sites can have as few as eight homes or as many as 2500, though they must be located contiguously, and it requires working with neighbors to attain the recognition. Pursuing Firewise recognition is one of the 18 recommendations of the Fitch evacuation report, and some insurance companies factor in Firewise recognition when making underwriting and premium decisions.

Firewise is based in science—specifically, in research that determined that 1) fire does not engulf everything in its path; 2) fire only advances to locations that meet the requirements for combustion; and 3) altering the type, size, quantity, and spacing of vegetation and other fuels will reduce likelihood of combustion. Most significant, it lays out things homeowners can do to prevent home ignition.

Firewise is a voluntary program, but is built on the home ignition zone concept, which states that a home’s materials and immediate surroundings dictate its ignitability; what happens in the zones is critical to structure survival in a wildfire. Beyond the established 0-5’, 30’ and 100’ zones for individual homes, it seeks to create an ignition-resistant community because those zones frequently overlap from parcel to parcel. (Fire experts generally say that the 0-5’ zone is the most critical.) By changing the character of the home ignition zone, you can alter the path of a fire for one property. But by changing the character of the community’s ignition zone, you have the opportunity to alter a wildfire’s path for an entire community. So potentially you won’t see photos like the one of the last house standing in a neighborhood in Lahaina, surrounded by devastation. (A recent report determined that the house survived in large part because its 0-5’ zone had been cleared.)

Firewise USA acknowledges that wildfires are part of the ecosystem and will continue; that most homes are located on private property; that homeowners have the right to make choices about their property; and too often they are under the impression that there is nothing they can do to save their homes in a wildfire. It offers communities the information they need to change this perception. But it requires sustained community action for recognition status to be achieved and maintained.

To pursue Firewise USA recognition, a community needs to:

• Obtain a wildfire risk assessment from the local fire agency.
• Form a board made up of residents and other wildfire stakeholders.
• Determine the size and boundary of the Firewise site.
• Develop a multi-year action plan based on the site’s risk reduction priorities.
• Host a minimum of one risk reduction educational outreach event annually.
• Meet the minimum wildfire risk reduction investment (Each site is required to invest at least the equivalent value of one volunteer hour per dwelling unit in risk reduction actions annually. A wide range of qualifying actions and expenditures—contractor costs, rental equipment, resident activities, grants, etc.—comprise the overall investment totals.)
• Submit an application to the state’s Firewise USA liaison.

Following the presentation, Chief Josh Gordon answered a wide range of questions from the audience, and seven lucky attendees won door prizes, including a variety of products designed to help during power outages, as well as a fire blanket, a fireproof document case, and a selection of products generously donated by Elizabeth Sugarman of Sugar Sweet Farm. An assortment of desserts from local bakeries were enjoyed by all!

There will be additional meetings about Firewise USA and how to start implementing it in Olivenhain in the coming year, so stay tuned!