Fed money to aid wildfire mitigation in San Mateo County

During a press conference — at Sweeney Ridge Trail in San Bruno Wednesday, announcing the funding — Speier reflected on the Tubbs fire that ripped from Calistoga through Santa Rosa, killing 40 people and destroying 6,000 homes.

“It was a wake-up call for all of us that live in urban areas that wildfires just don’t happen in the woods,” Speier said.

The threat of a wildfire on the Peninsula is high and it is important to take the steps to protect the homes and lives of the community, she added.

San Bruno Fire Chief Ari Delay said many of California and the Bay Area’s most damaging wildfires have occurred where open spaces and homes meet. Over the last 30 years in the Bay Area, approximately 197,000 acres have burned and approximately 5,300 structures have been destroyed due to some of these fires, he added.

“These devastating fires have all been in close proximity to San Bruno and really should serve as a reminder to us that we are not immune from a catastrophic fire, we just haven’t had our turn here locally,” Delay said.

The fire department will target areas based on a scientifically based risk assessment that seeks to identify the highest risk area, he added.

“I think it is really important to understand that wildfire has no boundaries, no political boundaries, no city boundaries where a wildfire may occur and our firefighting and fire prevention is really a social contract amongst our communities, where a fire in our community can just as easily affect our neighbor in the north, south, east and to the west,” Delay said.

San Bruno City Manager Jovan Grogan said the city launched a wildfire mitigation project. The additional funding will nearly double the city’s annual allocation for its wildfire mitigation project, he added.

This will help “give our firefighters a chance to keep a small fire small and protect the community,” Grogan said, adding the challenges of climate change and electric grid upgrades has intensified.

Belmont Vice Mayor Tom McCune said Belmont takes pride in its parks and open spaces and works throughout the year to ensure accessibility and needs of residents and visitors.

“To provide us with these funds to target the fuel reduction as an immediate action, yesterday’s prescribed burn was a good example, if you saw that near Belmont,” McCune said. “[It] will make a difference in the protection of our parks, our residents and our city’s ability to keep the promise for parks for all generations to come.”

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