Ranch Fire highlights value of pre-fire planning

It was one of the last fires of the century. On the evening of December 21, 1999, the Ventura County Fire Department received the report of a wildland fire in the Upper Ojai Valley.

Terry Raley, Wildland Fire Officer for Ventura County Fire District describes that night, “I can’t tell you what it was like…like Hiroshima. The winds were 70–90 miles per hour, we couldn’t see, people were hysterical…”

Santa Ana winds were blowing more than 25 mph when the 911 call came in, increasing to over 70 mph during the night. Sixty-eight homes on Sisar Road were immediately threatened; four schools, countless other structures, and even the City of Ojai and Los Padres National Forest were in possible danger.

Surprisingly, given the conditions, only one home and a barn were lost. This fire goes down in the history books as a success, which nobody doubts was entirely due to the pre-fire projects that had been carried out in the community.

The problem had been identified years earlier. This was an area of dense fuel beds that had not burned in at least 50 years. In early 1993, a 5-year Burn Plan was submitted by the County to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF). The Plan identified those areas most at risk of a wildland fire disaster.

The goals and objectives of the Burn Plan were to:

• provide defense against wildfire destroying private property where fire hazard reduction cannot stand alone.
• provide and/or improve wildlands carrying capabilties and habitat diversity for wildlife.
• consider and protect the values of air quality, historical artifacts, and endangered plants and species.

In the spring of 1993, an education campaign was conducted to explain the potential of a major fire to people in the community. Public meetings were held, and pamphlets were delivered to residents. About 17,000 notices were sent out requiring 100 feet of defensible space clearance around homes. 99% of the community complied—the remaining properties were cleared by the county.

A working plan was created through the cooperative effort of landowners, USDA Forest Service, CDF, Ventura Air Pollution Control District, and local businesses, schools, organizations, and residents.

The Vegetation Management Burn Plan, written by the Ventura County Fire Protection District, incorporated the Sisar Road area which had no recorded fire history. The Plan involved cutting, stacking, and burning the brush from a fuel bed northeast of Sisar Road.

Fortuitously, following a series of major firestorms in 1993, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) made grant funding available for hazard mitigation projects. The Sisar Road project was already underway when the Fire District applied for and received a FEMA grant for $42,000 in 1995. The County Board of Supervisors agreed to provide the matching funds of $10,500.

Extensive work was done in the Sisar Road area:

• 200 acres of brush was cut, stacked and burned adjacent to the road in May 1994.
• An additional 150 acres was cut and stacked west of Sisar Road in 1995.
• A 659-acre prescribed fire was conducted on the west side of Sisar Creek in 1997, giving the residents of Upper Ojai a defensible space from the threat of fire under an east wind condition.
• Preparatory work was ongoing on the areas of regrowth behind the residences in 1998.
• Approximately 65 acres of regrowth was cut, stacked and burned in the early part of 1999.

When fire finally came through the area that windy night in late 1999, it hit the pre-fire treatment areas, which slowed it enough to allow firefighters to get control.

Bob Roper, Fire Chief of the Ventura County Fire Protection District, is quick to point out that a key component of this story was the partnerships that formed in Ventura. Local citizens and organizations, and local, state, and federal agencies all contributed to the success. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and California Office of Emergency Services (OES) provided funding for pre-fire work. Ventura County Air Pollution Control District was instrumental in facilitating the prescribed burns. Local landowners, Fire Safe Councils, CDF, and the USDA Forest Service were all involved in the work at different stages.

Is all this pre-fire effort justified financially? The total costs associated with the project preparation (chain saws, minor tools and equipment, transportation, equipment rental, CDF handcrew time, meals, and planning) came to approximately $40 per acre. Cost of the 659-acre prescribed burn (including meals, helicopter time, and personnel costs) was about $17 per acre—altogether a little over $25,000.

On the other hand, the Ranch Fire consumed 4,500 acres with suppression costs over $1000 per acre—that’s more than $5 million total!

But most impressive of all is the cost of what could have happened. With homes on Sisar Road alone valued over $20 million, plus schools, orchards, a national forest, and a city in its path, the Ranch Fire could easily have caused astronomical damage. The fact that it didn’t is a tribute to the forethought and efforts of this community.