Susan Beeler, Steve Clement and Leslie Bowen do a lot of driving. They’re defensible space inspectors and they’re visiting every address in Butte County. It’s a slow and methodical process.
Earlier this week, I rode along with the trio as they were working Berry Creek, a secluded woody, expanse of foothills east of Oroville. The area is known for Bald Rock, where locals value their privacy and underground agriculture — the marijuana trade.
There’s a bit of a dance the inspectors perform when they roll up on a property. They take stock inside their full-sized Cal Fire Chevy pickup. The idea is to get noticed, and not surprise anyone. Bowen checks a GPS enabled tablet that’s tracking our location and all of the houses they’ve inspected.
“The green ones are the ones that passed on the first inspection, the yellow ones are the ones that failed, and then the purple ones are the locked gates,” Bowen said. “So, we have a lot of purple.”
Bowen, Beeler and Clement estimate about half of the properties they visit have locked gates across their driveways. No access means no inspection.
This year though, for the first time, they’re leaving behind literature, asking property owners to invite them back. So far, they’ve received one call. Clement said it’s the people they won’t hear from that he’s worried about most.
“The ones that don’t call are usually the ones that we really and truly need to talk to, because they don’t have the defensible space and they don’t get it,” Clement said.
The principles of defensible space are simple. Within 30 feet of your home, clear the area of vegetation — remove dead plants, grass, weeds, leaves and needles. Also, make sure trees that are close to your home are maintained. Keep branches at least 10 feet from a chimney or neighboring trees. Moving out, between 30 to 100 feet from the home, prevent grass from exceeding four inches, clean up shrubs and trees and keep plenty of open space. Think more manicured garden and less wild jungle.
Back in the Cal Fire truck, we turn off a side road onto dirt. Scotch broom, an invasive plant known for flammability, touches both sides of the truck. Half a mile from the main road, we hit another locked gate. Beeler hops out and attaches some literature to it. We move on.
The three said the biggest challenges to compliance are absentee landlords, foreclosures and homes in probate. They said they aren’t big on writing up fines and they don’t report marijuana grows to code enforcement or the sheriff. The goal is simply safety.
“We want them, in the end, for them to be able to shelter in place if a fire comes in the middle of the night, and they’re stuck there,” Beeler said. “We want everyone to be safe.”
In an emergency, a home with defensible space can mean the difference between crews making a stand or bugging out. The space can provide a survivable refuge if the surrounding forests are a jumble of brush turning into a wall of flame. The inspectors keep track of where there’s defensible space and where there isn’t.
Around midday we pull up on an old trailer home. It seems unoccupied. Eventually, the owner emerges.
Hellos are exchanged. Then the inspectors notice a few trouble spots, a couple of debris piles, vigorous blackberry bushes creeping toward the back of the home and something very common in the foothills—wind-blown pine needles scattered across the roof. Beeler begins explaining these observances to owner Margaret Yates.
“The reason that we’d be concerned about the pine needles on the roof and stuff is because we actually found out that most of the homes that were lost in the Camp Fire were lost from embers, not radiant from heat,” Beeler said. “So even if the fire didn’t even get to the house …”
Yates breaks in saying she understands. She explains her predicament and Beeler hands her contact info for the local Fire Safe Council, which is providing some financial help. The two share a laugh. The conversation ends. We move TO get back in the truck.
A few miles away the scenario is completely different. Kim and Paul Schwind’s 22-acre homestead is hardened against fire. Immediately around the home: a field of gravel accented by a handful of widely spaced native shrubs.
Further out, tall pines, cedars and firs are far apart and limbed up; with no small shrubs nearby. In the parlance of Cal-Fire, the Schwind’s have declared war on ladder fuels. Kim Schwind said they take fire very seriously and designed their home around it.
“The siding is also concrete siding, which helps in the case of a fire a little bit,” Kim said. “I mean, if there’s a huge fire storm, all bets are off. It’s just going to come through. The venting has this little small grid.”
The tight mesh prevents burning embers riding fire-borne winds from being pushed into an attic vent, or into crawl space beneath the house.
All that open space takes time. Kim said between she and her husband they spend four hours a day on tasks related to defensible space.
“There’s a lot of mowing. I almost can’t wait for August when everything has stopped growing and turned brown,” Kim said.
The trick, her husband Paul said, is slow and steady progress.
“Baby steps. You don’t have to kill yourself doing it,” Paul said. “Just stay at it every week.”