Name: Supes praise home hardening for Riviera pilot program
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Supes praise home hardening for Riviera pilot program

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Skip to contentLAKEPORT— The Board of Supervisors heard testimony regarding home hardening and defensible space measures to improve chances of structures surviving wildfire because of retrofit measures the Kelseyville Riviera will undergo over the next three years with federal funding but did not commit any county resources to the program.Deanna Fernweh is project manager for North Coast Opportunities, nonprofit in collaboration with California Office of Emergency Services, Cal Fire, and Lake County to forge together on wildfire prevention. Fernweh said the program is unique since FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) usually takes action after a disaster occurs, but NCO will focus on abating any potential calamity. The intent is to rehabilitate homes with fire resistant materials.“This program is condensed down to Kelseyville Riviera area,” she said. “After FEMA’s three years of data collection, hopefully the program will open up to other communities through the West Coast. The goal is harden 500 homes in the Kelseyville Riviera Association, was chosen because of high wildfire risk in Lake County.”She went on to explain that Clearlake was not chosen because when Cal Fire studied where to start with a pilot program it made sense to begin in Kelseyville Riveria. The choice made sense because of so many homes in that area were close together. The goal, by choosing this cluster, will provide a measure of resistance resiliency.&nbsp; “The premises is, if my home is hardened, and my neighbor’s is also, and so on and so forth, then we achieve a whole community of hardened homes and makes the whole community safer,” she said. And she noted, that are was selected because of vulnerable exits of ingress/egress, it’s surrounded by high vegetation surrounding the area as well as high winds that pick up on most afternoons. Other features of NCO’s program is that it coordinates rehab work with contractors, the program pays contractors directly and is not a homeowner rebate model, the program provides up to $40,000 to perform site work for eligible measures and no share of coast for homeowners at moderate income for the area. Online Portals make applications easy to walk through and usually requires about 15 minutes.Mayra Blazina is NCO’s lead assessor and in a 2 1/2 hour walk-through will know what retrofit measures are required and which defensible space action to take. “One goal is manage vegetation by fuels by making defensible space and make structures stronger. “Defensible space refers to the 100 feet that surrounds the structure,” she said. “The idea is thin out vegetation as it gets closer to the house, so if there was a fire, it dies out before reaching the house. Defensible space is divided into three zones she explained. Zone Zero is from the house to a perimeter of five feet with an effort to have nothing combustible around the home there. Zone 1 is the next 30 feet, and Zone 2 is 30 to 100 feet or the property line, whichever comes first, and vegetation here should be broken up.“In 90 percent of fires, they’re started by embers, so some measures are specific to embers, others designed for flames,” said Blazina. NCO will look for all gaps around the house or roof, around the walls and close them with fire calking. They will put in gutter covers to avoid debris accumulating in gutters. Also, they’ll make extra effort to garage doors. Meanwhile for flame, they will cover roofs with fire resistant materials and change gutters to non-combustible materials, as well as change wall coverings to non-combustible. Also they will install double tempered windows and implement fire breaks between decks and attached structures.Fernweh explained the next phase is to get 1,250 homes ready for construction. But to geta an umbrella California Environmental Quality Act clearance they must first get a National Environmental Policy Act clearance first. NCO is also making sure their application portals are user friendly and have staff ready to do&nbsp; question and answer sessions soon to get 15 homeowners ready for construction, all in effort to make certain their scope of work is ready to go out to bid to contractors. “The goal is to have construction underway in 60 days, and the first year have 25 homes retrofitted, the second, 125 homes and the third year 300 homes.,” she said.Distict 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska, and board chair, noted there has been a huge list of preparation executed over the prior two years and expressed gratitude to NCO for serving as a mediator with Cal Fire and Cal OES. She admitted that Kelseyville Riviera may not be the most vulnerable area, but it does have a high senior population, who cannot do the work, cannot leave their homes, have difficult evacuation routes, and difficulty with connectivity.However, District 2 Supervisor Bruno Sabatier praised the program, but voiced concern initiating the program with a population who are by comparison better off than much of the rest of the county. He questioned whether expanding the program logistically beyond Kelseyville Riviera could be a challenge.But Pyska reasoned numerous residents of Kelseyville Riviera have met the threshold of moderate income earners. “But these people struggle with their homes and there’s room in the program for a small amount of people above the income threshold, Yet, they have to pay 10 to 15 percent into the program, but they’ll get assistance because $40,000 is a lot to come up with.”.Most Popular

Skip to contentLAKEPORT— The Board of Supervisors heard testimony regarding home hardening and defensible space measures to improve chances of structures surviving wildfire because of retrofit measures the Kelseyville Riviera will undergo over the next three years with federal funding but did not commit any county resources to the program.Deanna Fernweh is project manager for North Coast Opportunities, nonprofit in collaboration with California Office of Emergency Services, Cal Fire, and Lake County to forge together on wildfire prevention. Fernweh said the program is unique since FEMA...

Supes praise home hardening for Riviera pilot program

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