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The Tri-Valley is poised for hotter days ahead, a reminder that Northern California has entered fire season.
Fire risk and prevention, however, is a year-round consideration for officials at the East Bay Regional Park District.
The park district focuses its wildfire prevention efforts in high risk areas such as the hills of Oakland and Berkeley as well as Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline and it intends to expand that same focus district-wide in the future, according to EBRPD Acting General Manager Max Korten.
It uses a variety of vegetation management techniques for wildfire prevention in an effort to make communities near parks safer, improve ecosystem health and keep parks accessible, Korten explained during a webinar May 27 about the park district’s wildfire prevention work.
“There’s nothing we can do to 100% protect communities from wildfire, but everything that we can do to make our neighbors safer, we want to take those steps,” Korten said.
EBRPD was spurred in part to take preventative action against wildfires following the 1991 Oakland Firestorm, wherein 25 individuals were killed and 3,000 homes were destroyed.
It was the nation’s most devastating wildfire at the time, EBRPD Assistant Fire Chief Khari Helae said during the webinar.
“As an agency, we decided to change our focus and make sure prevention was a big part of it,” Helae explained.
A long-term framework dubbed the Wildfire Hazard Reduction and Resource Management Plan later outlined areas of focus for fuels reduction and vegetation management such as Anthony Chabot Regional Park, Lake Chabot Regional Park, Wildcat Canyon Regional Park and Tilden Regional Park.
Study areas were generally adjacent to people’s homes or areas where EBRPD has determined that a fire could be potentially catastrophic, Helae explained.
“The threat of catastrophic wildfires under Diablo wind conditions, high fuel loads in EBRPD parks, and continued community development in the wildland-urban interface present significant risks to public health and safety, homes, and property if not consistently and adequately addressed,” the plan states.
To-date, EBRPD has been granted $40 million to support fuel mitigation work within the plan.
“Our ecosystems evolved with disturbance, including wildfire and Indigenous cultural fire, but colonization, fire suppression and changing disturbance patterns have disrupted the balance,” EBRPD ecological services coordinator Kristen Van Dam said during the webinar.
Without widely prescribed wildfire, there is a “vast overgrowth” of vegetation in the landscape, Van Dam explained.
Meanwhile, the risk of ignitions has increased due to human-related factors, according to EBRPD fuels reduction coordinator Givonne Law.
She pointed to vehicles, utilities and recreation as human factors that risk ignition.
Vegetation management is critical to reduce fire risk, Law added.
“Different landscapes require different vegetation management approaches,” she said.
EBRPD’s most commonly used management technique is grazing with a program that covers 85,000 acres of the parklands, according to Van Dam.
Cattle, goats and sheep help reduce fine fuels, especially in grassland, Law explained.
EBRPD uses other methods such as mechanical and manual removal of vegetation, targeted application of herbicide, ecological restoration and prescribed burns.
“Vegetation management is occurring throughout our parks, district-wide,” Helae said.
He noted that the completed management of Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve and multiple projects at Tilden were especially complex.
One of the “bigger” EBRPD projects was at Anthony Chabot, he added.
There were over 600 acres of dead trees standing at Anthony Chabot, due to climate change, infestation and pathogens, Helae explained.
EBRPD has invested $12.9 million dollars at Anthony Chabot, where it has thinned 678 acres of trees to the benefit of Oakland, San Leandro and Castro Valley, Helae said.
“Prior to us doing this work here, this was a tinder box that kept me and previous chiefs up late at night because we knew if a fire occurred there, it was going to be a big problem,” Helae said.
Among comments made at the Q&A session, one attendee suggested that a disproportionate amount of work was being done in the Oakland hills.
“In the next few years, you can expect us to do more fuels reduction work throughout the park district,” Korten replied.
EBRPD is focusing on defensible space areas in all parks to help protect neighbors, he added.
When asked about fire prevention efforts in the Tri-Valley, Korten said the park district aims to expand vegetation management in Briones Regional Park in Martinez and Las Trampas Wilderness Regional Preserve in San Ramon.
Another question came on how to lobby for more action outside of the Oakland Hills area.
“That’s already part of the planning that we want to do,” Korten reiterated.
Constituents can also contact EBRPD and their ward representative with requests, he added.
A recording of the webinar is available on the EBRPD website here.
