Leaders of the Santa Barbara County Fire Chiefs Association recently met to create three working groups to address major fire safety issues at the regional level.
‘We met as fire chiefs and realized that we are all working independently on these issues. “Unfortunately, when we come up with solutions independently, it has unintended consequences or impacts on our neighboring jurisdictions,” Mark Hartwig, head of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, told Noozhawk. “Greg Fish (Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Chief) thought, ‘Why don’t we just get our staff together to identify the fire and life safety issues and see if we can address them directly?’ In this way, we have a local set of standards that we can take back to policymakers. ‘
Fish told Noozhawk: “I was trying to get an idea where all the people representing these different agencies come together and come up with solutions.”
After collaborating with community members, stakeholders and the various fire services, the fire chief association has identified three main issues to address: access to and parking at railroads and beaches in the country, scattered campsites and fires and other safety issues related to homelessness.
“We have found that the closer we work together on common issues, the easier it is for everyone involved because the communities are so intertwined,” Kevin Taylor, head of the Montecito Fire Protection District, told Noozhawk.
Taylor is the leader of the working group focused on access to railways and parking. Rob Hazard, division chief of Santa Barbara County Fire, heads the scattered camping work group and Carpinteria-Summerland fire marshal Rob Rappaport oversees the homeless group.
“The aim of the task force is that the three groups will submit recommendations, give them to the provincial heads and then submit them to the respective elected bodies,” Hazard said.
According to Hazard, the working group focused more on homeless campsites and concerns about the fire hazard it poses. From January 1 to December 1 last year, Hazard responded to 45 calls related to fires in homeless campsites, and 12 of the incidents were wildfires.
While the fire chiefs investigated the issue more deeply, they began to notice a bit with other issues of interest, Hazard said.
Scattered campsites were a link between the camp for the homeless as many residents began to see a huge increase in overnight camps along the road, he added. The 2019 cave fire was man-made, and the use of campfires in the mountains poses an extreme fire risk.
Because most of the scattered campsites are located in national public forest areas, the fire brigade does not have an enforcement authority. The campground working group is meeting with Los Padres National Forest staff to find out how they can work together, Hazard said.
“Part of these working groups is to determine who has the power to enforce regulations and what options are available to the stakeholder group,” he added.
The overcrowded parking at the railway heads and the beaches of the province was the third issue. With the increasing use of the trailheads, access to the mountains is restricted, which can pose a problem for the fire brigade during an emergency.
“Right now we’re in the discovery phase,” Taylor said. “We have information from community members, firefighters and other stakeholders, and now we are putting the people together and going to look at the agencies responsible for implementation.”
In early February, the working groups will regroup and bring back targets based on the three priorities to provide possible recommendations for the respective elected officials or agencies, Fish said.
“This is a job that is working, but it will provide clarity on public safety,” he added. “We need to address these issues so that people do not die, be seriously injured or create a greater danger. This is unacceptable. ”
Hartwig said: ‘This will give us at least a uniform set of recommendations in the sense that the same actions we take in one jurisdiction will be ideal as others. Thus, we would not have the unintended consequences. ”
– The author of Noozhawk staff, Jade Martinez-Pogue, can be reached (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Get in touch with Noozhawk on Facebook.