Special Notice / Hearing: None__
Vote Required: None
To: Honorable Board of Supervisors
From: Nicholas J. Calderon, Parks Director
Subject: San Mateo County Parks Department’s Wildfire Mitigation Program
RECOMMENDATION:
title
Accept the report on San Mateo County Parks Department’s Wildfire Mitigation Program.
body
BACKGROUND:
In response to the increasing scale and severity of wildfires occurring throughout California, including the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire, the San Mateo County Parks Department (“Department”) developed a 5-year Wildfire Fuel Management Program (“Program”), which this Board accepted at its February 23, 2021 meeting. The goal of the program was to improve public safety and mitigate wildfire risk by reducing the amount of fire fuel in the park system and facilitating safe access for fire agencies responding to a fire.
Since the Program’s inception in 2021, the Department—which manages the County’s 24 parks, recreation areas, and historic sites that comprise over 16,000 acres of land, mostly located within or in proximity to the wildland-urban interface—has completed over 1,800 acres of fire fuel reduction work. Treatment of fire fuel on parkland has created and/or expanded fuel breaks which are designed to reduce the risk of a groundfire becoming a canopy fire, ensure fire agencies can have reliable access to the interior of parks to contain and suppress fires, and reduce the amount fuel present along park boundaries with residential neighborhoods. Moreover, using the Program as a guide, the Department has obtained over $7,600,000 in state and federal grant funds for fuel reduction project implementation in County parks.
Since its creation, the Program has also served as an effective planning, decision-making, and permitting tool, enabling the Department to effectively appropriate resources for the implementation and maintenance of Program projects, to monitor project progress, and to adapt implementation strategies as necessary and appropriate. Understanding that new data was to be collected and the understanding regarding fire mitigation was evolving, the Department set the Program to sunset in five years (2026).
DISCUSSION:
In partnership with local stakeholders, including fire agencies and the Department of Emergency Management, the Department has prepared the updated Program. The updated Program incorporates new spatial data, including the updated 2023 CAL FIRE Fire Hazard Severity Zone Maps, a regional vegetation map and fuel model dataset completed in 2022, and a dataset outlining critical ingress and egress routes for first responders and the community. The use of spatial data ensures the highest risk areas are being addressed first. The updated Program also reflects the extensive work performed by the Department in the nearly five years since the Program’s adoption and provides additional context and rationale for Department’s decision making and project planning. A critical addition to the Program is the inclusion of park infrastructure that can support fire agencies in responding to a fire in the park. Through conversations with local fire agencies, each emphasized the importance of having reliable access to the interior of parks to conduct containment and suppression efforts. Therefore, the Program has a number of proposed projects designed to improve ingress and egress for fire agencies as well as to install infrastructure that can support firefighting.
Fire fuel reduction treatment approaches proposed in the Program include the creation of fuel breaks (including shaded fuel breaks, non-shaded fuel breaks, and ingress/egress fuel breaks), and conducting forest health and forest density reduction treatments. These treatment approaches are well documented to mitigate the rate at which a fire can spread and the intensity at which a fire can burn as well as to support in effective wildfire containment and suppression efforts. Infrastructure improvement projects incorporated into the Program include repairing or creating fire access roads, repairing failing stream crossings and bridges that compromise the reliability of fire roads, and creating water supply in remote locations to aid fire suppression. Wildfire mitigation benefits of the Program include: (1) improving firefighters’ ability to respond to a wildfire and conduct critical fire containment and suppression activities; (2) reducing vegetation density that can contribute to the rate at which fire spreads; (3) reducing ladder fuels that can contribute to a ground fire becoming a canopy fire; (4) improving forest health and ecosystem resiliency against wildfire; and (5) enhancing residents’ ability to evacuate should a fire occur. These activities are in alignment with the Department’s mission to provide safe and accessible parks, steward natural resources, and manage park facilities and infrastructure.
The updated Program identifies 2,751 acres of County parkland where wildfire mitigation efforts should be implemented. This includes new work areas within County parks that will be planned for treatment, as well as maintenance and expansion of previously implemented projects. Ongoing monitoring and maintenance of project areas is paramount to ensuring that these areas continue to provide wildfire mitigation benefit as intended.
For all projects included in the Program, as well as for new projects planned in the future to mitigate wildfire risk within and around County parks, the Department will continue to plan for and design projects that prioritize wildfire risk reduction in addition to environmental resiliency and ecosystem health.
PERFORMANCE MEASURE:
|
Measure |
FY 2025-26 |
FY 2026-27 |
FY 2027-28 |
|
Acres of Fire Fuel Reduced |
220 |
235 |
235 |
COMMUNITY IMPACT:
The updated Program will offer tangible benefits to communities in the County by reducing wildfire risk, which can lead to improved air quality and health benefits, reducing economic disruptions caused by wildfire, and preservation of access to parks and the ecosystem services they provide.
FISCAL IMPACT:
From FY 2020-21 through FY 2024-25 there have been $5,397,728 in expenditures for Program projects. This includes both grant and Measure K funds. There is no Net County Cost associated with approving the recommendation to accept the report on the Program.