Ahead of the Blaze: Proactive Planning for Wildfire Risks in the Bay Area
Author: Chelsea Hall
University of California Berkeley
ABSTRACT
California faces intense wildfire risk that will only worsen over time due to climate change. Local jurisdictions find it increasingly difficult to navigate their many imperatives: preventing structural and human loss, understanding and predicting wildfire behavior, tracking emergent state legislation, and reaching all residents with wildfire resources. As a case example, the City of Oakland lacks comprehensive, proactive wildfire mitigation infrastructure. This article reveals that effective strategies for saving homes and lives incorporate close community and regional partnerships and prioritize limited resources for close-to-home mitigations. In light of these findings, I offer three recommendations for the City of Oakland that balance proactive mitigation with the City’s current budgetary constraints, offering a pragmatic path to community resilience in a fire-prone landscape. In the short term, the City could fund a community grants program using preexisting parcel tax revenue and prioritize funding for projects using effective mitigation approaches. In the medium term, the City could pass a Resilient Cities Development Measures zoning ordinance that streamlines permitting for post-fire rebuilding and enhances resilience of affected properties. And in the long term, the City could renew efforts to formalize an East Bay Joint Powers Authority that would coordinate regional wildfire resilience efforts. Though geared toward Oakland’s local government, these recommendations are broadly applicable to communities throughout the Western United States.