INTRODUCTION DEFINITION OF THE HOME IGNITION ZONE

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1 FIREWISE COMMUNITIES/USA RECOGNITION PROGRAM COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT May, 2011 Strawberry Lane Meadows Ashland, Oregon INTRODUCTION The Firewise Communities/USA program is designed to provide an effective management approach for preserving wildland living aesthetics. The program can be tailored for adoption by any community and/or neighborhood association that is committed to ensuring its citizens maximum protection from wildland fire. The following community assessment is intended as a resource to be used by the Strawberry Lane Meadows residents for creating a wildfire safety action plan. The plan developed from the information in this assessment should be implemented in a collaborative manner, and updated and modified as needed. A community assessment of both the residential development of Strawberry Lane Meadows and some of the immediately adjacent properties was conducted on May 2, Attendees were Strawberry Lane Meadows board members Allan Resnick and Darren Borgias; Strawberry Lane Meadows resident Eric Olson; Ashland Fire and Rescue Firewise Communities Coordinator Ali True; and Brian Ballou, Wildland Urban Interface Specialist from the Oregon Department of Forestry. The residential neighborhood in the HOA is comprised of 13 homes on 21 lots ranging from.25-2 acres in size. The assessment focused on: general fire resistant landscaping characteristics, home construction, and relationship of fire potential and fuels on adjacent unimproved properties that could impact residential development. Photos were taken to include in the report. DEFINITION OF THE HOME IGNITION ZONE Strawberry Lane Meadows is located in a wildfire-prone environment. Wildfires will happen--exclusion is not a choice. The area included in the Strawberry Lane Meadows Firewise Community is within the City of Ashland Wildfire Hazard Zone (WHZ). Located near the top of the Wright s Creek drainage, Strawberry Lane Meadows borders public and private lands that extend uphill to the Ashland watershed, the city s sole source of drinking water, and the Rogue/Siskiyou National Forest. The environment of Southern Oregon supports active wildfire behavior throughout the region. The variables in a fire scenario are when the fire will occur, and where. This assessment addresses the wildfire-related characteristics of Strawberry Lane Meadows and the surrounding area. It examines the area s exposure to wildfire as it relates to ignition potential. The assessment does not focus on specific homes, but examines the community as a whole.

2 A house burns because of its interrelationship with everything in its surrounding home ignition zone----the house and its immediate surroundings. To avoid a home ignition, a homeowner must eliminate the wildfire s potential relationship with his/her house. This can be accomplished by interrupting the natural path a fire takes. Changing a fire s path by clearing a home ignition zone is an easy-to-accomplish task that can result in avoiding home loss. To accomplish this, flammable items such as dead vegetation must be removed from the area immediately around the structure to prevent flames from contacting it. Also, reducing the volume of live vegetation will affect the intensity of the wildfire as it enters the home ignition zone. Included in this assessment are observations made while visiting Strawberry Lane Meadows and the surrounding properties. The assessment addresses the ease with which home ignitions can occur under severe wildfire conditions and how these ignitions might be avoided within the home ignition zones of affected residents. Strawberry Lane Meadows residents can reduce their risk of destruction during a wildfire by taking actions within their home ignition zones, as well as working with neighboring property owners to manage fuels within their home ignition zones. This zone principally determines the potential for home ignitions during a wildland fire; it includes a house and its immediate surroundings within 100 to 200 feet. The result of the assessment is that wildfire behavior will be dominated by the fuels management on adjacent properties, as well as the vegetation and construction characteristics of the residential area. The good news is that by addressing community vulnerabilities, residents will be able to substantially reduce their exposure to loss. Relatively small investments of time and effort will reap great rewards in wildfire safety. DESCRIPTION OF WILDLAND FIRE CHARACTERISTICS THAT COULD THREATEN THE AREA Strawberry Lane Meadows could be affected by wildfire in a variety of ways. There is potential for both severe fire behavior downhill, from the more developed neighborhoods of Ashland, as well as ember fallout from the brush filled slopes in nearby Wright s Creek and uphill towards the watershed. With considerable fuel loading in the surrounding areas, the subdivision could also be impacted by nearby fire activity in the form of ember exposure. Depending on wind patterns and fire behavior, the subdivision could face significant exposure from firebrands, or heat-carrying embers. Those firebrands could then start smaller fires that could then easily spread through hazardous vegetation within the neighborhood to become larger fires that could ignite homes. Any fire activity within a ½ mile radius could impact the neighborhood. Another scenario is a grass or brush fire within grassy open areas that could impact the edge of the subdivision. Some privately-owned open grass lands adjacent to ownerplanted hazardous vegetation such as Leland cypress and other conifers could carry fire directly to a structure if individual property owners do not maintain effective defensible space by minimizing the chain of fire-prone vegetation that leads directly to a structure. SITE DESCRIPTION

3 Strawberry Lane Meadows is a subdivision located on the southwest border of Ashland, Oregon. Ashland is a community bordered by the Rogue/Siskiyou National Forest, rural farmlands of Jackson County, and forested areas managed by private property owners. Strawberry Lane Meadows is bordered by a combination of multiple jurisdiction open space and forested hillside to the west and south, low density residential development to the east and north, as well as City-owned park land with public access trails in many directions. The subdivision consists of 13 homes on 21 lots ranging from under a half acre to over four acres in size, with slightly over six and a half acres (6.59) of common space, owned by the HOA, distributed throughout the neighborhood. Within the common areas is vegetation within the home ignition zones of adjacent houses. While some of the homes are in close proximity and share home ignition zones, about half of the homes are either on larger lots or adjacent to wellmaintained open space lots without another structure within the 200 foot diameter home ignition zone. The subdivision is not entirely contiguous, as there are tracts of undeveloped land within the neighborhood that are slated to be subdivided and developed in the future, as well as preexisting lots that are nestled within the boundaries of the HOA. As such, the HOA and its members do not have complete control over all of the areas considered in this report. Fire is influenced by three factors: topography, weather, and fuel. Topography: Strawberry Lane Meadows is located at an elevation of approximately 2300 feet. The neighborhood consists of 0-20% slope, with considerable slopes both below and above the developed neighborhood. The largest area of the neighborhood rests on a natural terrace, so many of the streets and lots experience minor slope, but are still affected by steeper slopes on neighboring parcels where slopes exceed 25% in places. Weather: During fire season, June through October, temperatures range on average between 80 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. The weather characteristics are influenced by the prominent topography, with generous upslope winds during the day, and downslope winds at night. Average wind speed is generally 5 to 15 miles per hour, with regular gusts exceeding 25 mph. Properties on the edge of the natural terraces can receive regular winds between 15 to 30 mph. Humidity ranges between 5 to 35%. General Fuels: General fuels consist of primarily managed ornamental landscaping surrounding residences, including some of the common HOA-managed areas. The surrounding unimproved properties include a variety of fuel types and conditions. Different fuel types include oak/pine woodlands with a grass understory and madrone component; open grassy areas of multiple ownership; seasonally moist creek drainages with willow and adjacent grass; as well as forested parkland, comprised of an oak/pine/madrone mix, with shrubs from manzanita, poison oak, and other natives intermixed. There is also a significant amount of over-mature manzanita that has begun to collapse and create additional ladder fuels as heavy snowfall deforms the upwards growth habit to a more horizontal pattern. While some neighboring properties under county jurisdiction have not been treated for fuels reduction, all of the HOA common properties as well as City-

4 owned park land have undergone fuels reduction treatments in the past 0-15 years, some as recently as spring, Since the Community was assessed in early May, 2011, some predevelopment fuels work has been completed on adjacent privately owned lands in the county. IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS The Firewise Communities/USA program seeks to create a sustainable balance that will allow communities to live safely while maintaining environmental harmony in a WUI setting. Homeowners already balance their decisions about fire protection measures against their desire for certain flammable components on their properties. It is important for them to understand the implications of the choices they are making. These choices directly relate to the ignitability of their home ignition zones during a wildfire. Upon entering Strawberry Lane Meadows, the assessment team observed three issues of concern: 1. Fire-prone vegetation within the individually owned lots of Strawberry Lane Meadows. 1.a. Fire-prone vegetation on some privately owned lots creates heavy fuel loading within home ignition zones.

5 1.b. Cypress, cedar and pampas grass ignite easily and burn with enough intensity to impact even fire-resistant construction, as well as creating many firebrands. 2. Development potential for vacant lots and pre-hoa development lots 2.a. Some lots have had fuels reduction work, but bring potential for future non-firewise landscaping and construction

6 2.b. Fire-prone Leland cypress and pampas grass landscaping on this lot has potential to be removed upon sale. 3. Maintenance of fuels treatments on HOA properties and neighboring parcels. 3.a. Excellent fuel reduction work on common areas must be maintained over time to remain effective.

7 3.b. Periodic thinning and brush removal is recommended to maintain earlier fuels treatments. OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (All recommendations are based on specific observations and will be listed in bold.) One observation made within Strawberry Lane Meadows during the assessment is the heavy dependence on fire-prone vegetation as ornamental landscaping within some individual lots (see below). When fire-prone plants are located within 30 feet of a home, they can easily spread and transmit fire to a home s siding, deck or porch, as well as break windows, with the extreme radiant heat and large flame lengths they emit. When they are located directly adjacent to a structure, they can easily transmit flames from the ground up to the wooden eaves and roof substructure of a home. The kind of vegetation in these lots is sufficient enough to pose a hazard under wildfire conditions to the immediate structure, as well as the neighborhood at large, due to the prevalence of firebrands that are generated from heavy fuel loading of fire-prone vegetation. The recommendation is to encourage individual homeowners to remove or modify hazardous vegetation like incense cedar, leland cypress, italian cypress, arborvitae, and pampas grass from their lots. In doing so, they will be creating a defensible space for their own house, as well as their neighbors homes. Because effective defensible space requires vegetation management within 200 feet of a home, it is only by collectively managing and modifying the hazardous vegetation that the neighborhood can have cohesive protection from wildfire. In addition, some of this vegetation may lie beyond feet from a house, but by thinning the density and possibly replacing with fire-resistant plants, the homeowners can decrease the potential for fire to spread within the neighborhood. With the potential for extreme fire behavior and limited evacuation routes, homeowners should take all precautions when managing their home landscapes to prevent home ignition due to ornamental landscaping. Many sources of information are available to demonstrate the beauty, drought tolerance, and effectiveness of fire-resistant landscaping. This report recommends that 100% of homes within Strawberry Lane Meadows achieve defensible space through Firewise

8 landscaping practices. Consistent implementation of firewise landscaping practices in Strawberry Lane Meadows can be an increasing part of the present culture of fire safety in the community. Cedar, arborvitae, pampas grass and other conifers are all fire-prone and can increase intensity of fire behavior in the neighborhood, and decrease safety for evacuation/firefighter access along driveway. An additional observation of the neighborhood concerns development potential of neighboring properties. Several empty lots, as well as soon-to-be developed lots, exist both within and around the perimeter of Strawberry Lane Meadows. All of the adjacent properties are in the same immediate fire environment and fire will move through the area with no respect to property line boundaries. While the direct control over these lots is not under the control of the HOA, it is recommended that Strawberry Lane Meadows Firewise Community welcome these existing and prospective homeowners to join the Firewise Community over the coming years. Through implementation of Firewise development standards for construction and landscaping, future

9 development can be a positive fire safety benefit to the neighborhood. This emphasis on shared involvement is due to the fact that any wildfire in the area will move throughout both HOAowned properties and other properties with no regard to ownership. Neighboring properties could benefit from inclusion in Firewise Communities program, and provide consistency within area for fuels treatments and develpoment standards. These photos indicate leland cypress and scotch broom on neighboring properties. Future developments provide opportunities for Firewise development from the design stage, rather than modifying construction and landcaping after completion. A final observation concerns the culture of fire safety within the neighborhood. There are many aspects to this observation, but most importantly, it should be noted that a long history of fuels management and wildfire awareness exists within the subdivision, based on repeated invasive species removal, brush clearing, weed abatement, blackberry removal, and more. These efforts should be applauded as offering consistent thorough and meaningful protection to the residents of the area. Many of the Firewise recommendations and suggestions in this report build on the knowledge and actions of residents to date.

10 Examples of fuels work in thinning the oak woodland slopes and removing blackberries along creek drainage. It is the recommendation of this report that the existing culture of fire preparedness in the community be incorporated into the Firewise Communities program. Education of new homeowners, adaption of Firewise principles into Strawberry Lane Meadows CCR s, landscaping guidelines; annual clean-up events, etc are all effective ways to continue the emphasis on preparedness within the community. Developing long term maintenance plans for existing fuels treatments, working with existing homeowners, and continuing present fire-safety practices like annual scotch broom removal are all great ways to be Firewise, increase community participation, and renew Firewise Communities recognition annually. SUCCESSFUL FIREWISE MODIFICATIONS When adequately prepared, a house can likely withstand a wildfire without the intervention of the fire service. Furthermore, a house and its surrounding community can be both Firewise and compatible with the area s ecosystem. The Firewise Communities/USA program is designed to enable communities to achieve a high level of protection against WUI fire loss even as a sustainable ecosystem balance is maintained. A homeowner and community must focus attention on the home ignition zone and eliminate the fire s potential relationship with the house. This can be accomplished by disconnecting the house from high and/or low-intensity fire that could occur around it. The following photographs were taken in Strawberry Lane Meadows and are examples of good Firewise practices.

11 & 2. Individual homeowners are maintaining fire-resistant landscaping and keeping fire-prone vegetation small and separated Use of non-combustible fencing material prevents fire from traveling between structures 4. Many homes feature fire-resistant construction materials, such as this one featuring stone and an asphalt composition roof Common area is a well maintained island featuring fire-resistant vegetation 6. Many homeowners are involved in fire awareness in the community Emergency access and evacuation routes within the community are adequate, due to a paved through-road and side streets. Hydrants, supplemental water systems provided by

12 residents, as well as an uphill water tank that supplies good pressure, are all a benefit. While some side streets within the community are dead-end roads, they are relatively short, with moderate turnarounds at the end. Residents with longer driveways within the subdivision, however, should take care to maintain adequate engine access and vegetation management along the driveway to allow firefighter access. Evacuation for residents is signed and would permit a quick and direct route for residents to exit neighborhood if needed. Some residents within Strawberry Lane Meadows have received a Wildfire Safety Home Assessment from Ashland Fire and Rescue, and then performed the recommended work of Firewise construction and landscaping improvements. In addition, many of the homes within the community are built with fire resistant materials such as concrete composition siding and asphalt composition roofs, and have fire-resistant vegetation within their lots. It is by increasing the number of these Firewise homes, maintaining Firewise practices on common areas, and working with neighbors on adjacent properties that Strawberry Lane Meadows will truly function as a Firewise Community. NEXT STEPS The Strawberry Lane Meadows Firewise Board, in cooperation with Ashland Fire and Rescue, has determined it wishes to seek Firewise Communities/USA recognition based on a March, 2011 community presentation to the HOA by an interested property owner. The Firewise Board representative contacted the Firewise Communities/USA representative on April 1st, 2011 to relay its decision. After review and acceptance of this assessment, the Strawberry Lane Meadows Firewise Board will create agreed-upon, area-specific solutions to the Firewise recommendations and create an action plan in cooperation with Ashland Fire and Rescue. Assuming the assessment area seeks to achieve national Firewise Communities/USA recognition status, it will integrate the following standards into its plan of action: Sponsor a local Firewise board, task force, committee, commission or department that maintains the Firewise Community program and status. Enlist a WUI specialist to complete an assessment and create a plan from which it identifies agreed-upon, achievable local solutions. Invest a minimum of $2.00 annually per capita in its Firewise Communities/USA program. (Work done by municipal employees or volunteers, using municipal or other equipment, can be included, as can state/federal grants dedicated to that purpose.) Observe a Firewise Communities/USA Day each spring that is dedicated to a local Firewise project.* Submit an annual report to Firewise Communities/USA. This report documents continuing participation in the program. In moving forward with the Firewise Communities Program, the residents and Homeowners Association of Strawberry Lane Meadows are acknowledging their partnership with Ashland Fire and Rescue in the mission of reducing home loss to wildfire. Strawberry Lane Meadows will function as Ashland s third Firewise Community, demonstrating the individual

13 and collective will to enact change in their community and share the responsibility for wildfire preparedness. Congratulations! *Note: There are a variety of ways to implement Firewise projects, and it is not limited to a single day of recognition. If one of the action items is an on-going or seasonal removal of trees, that is acceptable, as long as it is part of the action plan and can be documented as such, as well as accounting for the per capita investment.