Fire buffer zones are no protection
June Casagrande
Just as some had feared, residents haven’t been as safe from fires
as they thought.
A survey of landscaping work done on fire buffer zones shows that
some of these areas have not been maintained according to fire safety
standards.
“These ‘fuel modification zones’ are important to the residents
because they’re designed as a barrier against wild fires such as the
ones that were in Laguna Beach several years ago,” said Jim McGee, a
Newport Coast resident and member of the city’s Newport Coast
Advisory committee.
Before the 2,600 homes in Newport Coast were annexed to the city,
homeowners associations were responsible for maintaining these strips
of land, which encircle housing developments to separate homes from
brush fires. While all the homeowners associations have been paying
private landscape maintenance companies to do the work, Orange County
officials haven’t conducted the annual inspections of the zones.
Homeowners associations have been paying for work that hasn’t been
getting intended results.
“There’s a question as to whether or not the companies did
properly perform the work, because the county was not doing its job
of inspecting at least once a year,” McGee said.
As part of a pre-annexation deal, the city of Newport Beach agreed
to take over maintenance of these grassy areas. But the city is not
responsible for bringing neglected sites up to code -- the agreement
says the city should not inherit responsibility for years of neglect
by the county or inadequate work by the contractors.
The city did, however, hire the surveyor who found several areas
to be out of compliance. Now the homeowners associations must work
with their landscapers to get the zones in order. Then the city will
take over.
* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport.
She may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at
june.casagrande@latimes.com.
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