Leaders of the Santa Barbara County Fire Chiefs Association recently gathered to create three working groups with the goal of addressing major fire safety challenges at the regional level.
“We came together as fire commanders and realized that we are all working independently on these problem areas. Unfortunately, if we come up with solutions independently, it will have unintended consequences or consequences for our neighboring jurisdictions, ”Mark Hartwig, chief 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 and identify the fire and life safety issues and see if we can tackle them regionally?’ That way we have a regional set of standards that we can take back to policymakers. “
Fish told Noozhawk, “I was trying to come up with an idea where all the people representing these different agencies come together to come up with solutions.”
Working with community members, stakeholders and the various fire departments, the Association of Fire Chiefs identified three major issues to address: access and parking at provincial hiking trails and beaches, scattered camping and fires, and other security concerns associated with homeless camps.
“We’ve 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 Distric, told Noozhawk.
Taylor heads the task force dealing with trailhead access and parking. Santa Barbara County Fire Department Head Rob Hazard leads the scattered campground workgroup, and Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Marshal Rob Rappaport oversees the homeless camp group.
“The purpose of the task force is for the three groups to make recommendations, make them to the district heads, and then forward them to the respective elected bodies,” Hazard said.
The working group began to focus more on homeless camps and was concerned about the associated fire risks they presented, Hazard said. From Jan. 1 to Dec. 1 last year, the provincial fire department responded to 45 calls related to fires in homeless camps, Hazard said, and 12 of those incidents were wildfires.
When the fire chiefs took a deeper look at that issue, they began to notice some spin-off into other related issues of interest, Hazard said.
Scattered camping was linked to the issue of homeless camps, as many residents began to notice a large increase in camping at night by the side of the road, he added. The 2019 Cave Fire was caused by humans and the use of campfires in the mountains is an extreme fire hazard.
Because most of the scattered camping takes place on public forest land, the province’s fire department has no enforcement authority. The campground’s 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 identify who has the authority to enforce regulations and what options are available for that stakeholder group,” he added.
Different from scattered camping, the overcrowded parking lot near provincial hiking trails and beaches was the third problem identified. With the increased use of the trailheads, access to the mountains is becoming more limited, which can pose a problem for the fire service in an emergency.
“Right now we are in the discovery phase,” said Taylor. “We have information from community members, firefighters and other stakeholders, and now we’re putting it together and reaching out to the authorities responsible for implementation.”
In early February, the working groups will regroup and narrow down targets based on the three priorities to make possible recommendations for the respective elected officials or agencies, Fish said.
“It is a work in progress, but it will really bring clarity with regard to public safety,” he added. “We need to address these issues so that people don’t die, get seriously injured, or pose greater danger. That is unacceptable. ”
Hartwig said, “This will at least provide us with a uniform set of recommendations in the sense that the same actions we take in one jurisdiction would ideally be standard for other jurisdictions. That way we wouldn’t have those unintended consequences. “
– Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at . (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @Newsurvey and @RTLnews. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.