With summer a week away, Southern California is already in fire season and agencies are stepping up their brush reduction efforts.
The rainfall from this winter was the heaviest in 15 years, bringing vegetation that could fuel fires as it dries out across Los Angeles, said L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone.
In anticipation of this, brush reduction and fire break work are either already finished or are in high gear, according to Fire Chief Jamie Moore.
“Every community within this city, the unincorporated areas, and within our urban interface, all of it sits inside the same risk envelope,” said Moore. “We have to be cognizant of that because what happens on one ridge affects the neighborhoods on the next one.”
Further, agencies learned from the Palisades and Eaton fires, improving mutual aid response models and increasing prescribed burns and fuel reduction efforts, according to Marrone.
“We want to assure residents and communities that your firefighters in the region are prepared and ready to respond at a moment's notice,” he said.
Herds of goats are being used to eat and clear brush in key high-risk fire zones, and prescribed burns on national forest land are also underway, according to Robert Garcia, the Fire Chief in the Angeles National Forest.
City of L.A., L.A. County, Orange County, and Ventura County Fire Departments have all reported a surge of public activity on their websites, with people seeking information on making homes fire-resistant or clearing defensible space near brush areas.
For homeowners, the most immediate concern is to clear out Zone 1, or the area within five feet of your home of anything combustible, and then to work outward to make your home as fire-resistant as possible.
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