OUTCOME: Community Health and Safety

Problem

Lack of advance planning hinders a community’s ability to respond to emergencies quickly and effectively, increasing the risk to lives and property. Without early detection, timely notification, safe and effective evacuation protocols, and clear and well-maintained evacuation routes, wildfires and other extreme events near populated areas create extreme risks for residents.

Solution

Community Emergency Planning - Facilitate community-level emergency preparedness and evacuation planning.

Background and Context

Community preparation for fire and extreme event-related emergencies and potential evacuations is critical for ensuring community safety. There are many actions communities can take to prepare themselves for emergencies, including implementing community communication systems (both phone and app based), designating and training Community Fire Liaisons, creating Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) and engaging with them regularly throughout the year, creating Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs), conducting community outreach in partnership with local volunteer fire departments (VFDs) and Fire Safe Councils (FSCs), and conducting simulation exercises. Communities can develop local maps to identify where remote homes and key infrastructure are located and incorporate that information into physical and online maps. This is especially important for large emergencies when out-of-town first responders are working in rural areas that may not be well mapped and may have many dead-end roads. Preparing these types of tools in advance of emergencies contributes to community safety in the event of a fire disaster. Engaging before fires with fire managers on PODs establishment and other pre-fire planning exercises also facilitates effective response during emergency events.

When wildfires occur near urban areas or in the WUI, early detection, timely notification, and safe and effective evacuation protocols save lives. The wildfires in and near urban areas in the North Coast region since 2017 highlight the need to effectively plan for evacuations and communicate clearly with the public in the event of an emergency. Recent technological solutions for wildfire detection and evacuation have been developed and tested in the Bay Area. These can include fire cameras, AI-based wildfire detection systems like Sonoma County’s FireScout, and community fire reporting apps like Watch Duty, developed in Sonoma County and recently expanded to cover the entire state.

Safe, well-maintained evacuation routes are critical safety features for every community at risk from wildfires. State law now requires that County General Plan Safety Elements must be updated to identify areas without at least two emergency evacuation routes and requires evacuation planning by local communities. However, insufficient funding has been provided for local Tribal and county governments to implement these rules (See Community Health & Safety – Land Use Policies Solution). North Coast communities need assistance with gathering data, including road width and conditions, dead ends, proximity of homes to roads, and evacuation routes. Once evacuation routes are identified and prioritized, resources will be needed to begin upgrading and maintaining these roads in collaboration with county and city roads departments, CalTrans, federal agencies, and private landowners responsible for rural road maintenance. Tribal areas are especially at risk as many Tribal members live in remote areas with difficult and poorly maintained access roads that need mapping and maintenance.

Recommendations

Every community in the North Coast region should conduct community preparedness planning and should receive necessary technical and financial support to do so. This may include assistance with developing protocols for emergency communication and response and sponsoring multi-agency emergency preparedness exercises and PODs planning workshops. Emergency detection, notification, and communication should be improved and expanded throughout the region. Additional wildfire cameras and rain gauges should be strategically deployed throughout the region to fill gaps in the existing wildfire and landslide detection network. To facilitate timely emergency notification, notification systems should be expanded to the entire the North Coast region and a non-optional evacuation alert system should be established. At the same time, not all communities have reliable broadband and/or cell phone service, so alternative methods of communication in rural and Tribal areas will need to be developed.

Tribes, local counties, and municipalities should identify their needs for conducting effective evacuation planning. NCRP will facilitate community-level emergency preparedness and evacuation planning by assisting North Coast communities with critical data gathering to identify road width and conditions, dead ends, proximity of homes to roads, and evacuation routes. NCRP will assist with the coordination of efforts across agencies and government entities, provide regional spatial analysis and evaluation of communities that are vulnerable due to evacuation constraints, and work with emergency agencies to facilitate training of staff and development of relevant spatial databases to identify evacuation routes and relevant associated data. NCRP will create maps of existing evacuation routes, identify and prioritize routes in need of maintenance, and identify areas where additional routes need to be created in communities where this information is not available.

Actions

  • Work with local Fire Safe Councils and local fire departments to identify and fill community emergency planning needs, including:
    • Identify vulnerable and at-risk communities, including Tribal communities, and provide prioritized and targeted assistance to increase community emergency response preparedness and planning.
    • Identify communities that do not have a CERT and assist them to create CERTs to aid firefighters and law enforcement.
    • Identify communities that do not have Local/Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plans and assist them to create them.
  • Support the development of FEMA approved Local Hazard Mitigation Plans. Proactive mitigation plans reduce risk and create safer, more disaster-resilient communities (See Climate Action – Adaptation Solution).
  • Facilitate development of a local cadre that operates under mutual aid agreements and would function in State Responsibility Areas in a similar manner to Federal Resource Advisors. These roles would facilitate communication of pre-fire planning and resource management objectives to the incident command structure and improve on the utilization of pre-fire strategies.
    • Engage in CWPP, PODs, Unit plan development and other pre-fire planning.
    • Communicate with the incident command structure.
    • Capture incident response data packages, as well as BAER and WERT data products for long term recovery needs.
    • Establish advanced contingencies for high value resources.
  • Sponsor simulation exercises that bring together local decision makers to simulate response to emergency situations. Invite state agency partners to ensure compatibility with statewide programs and vet this process for potential replication statewide.
  • Assist communities in designating and training a Community Fire Liaison to facilitate information flow between first responders, IMTs, and the community during wildfires. Ensure that IMTs working near Tribal communities have a Tribal liaison (i.e., Salmon River Fire Safe Council Community Fire Liaison Team).
  • Investigate and replicate the Map Your Neighborhood program currently being implemented in western Sonoma County and the Mendocino Fire Safe Council’s community emergency response tool focused on rural communities.
  • Map and identify key fire response infrastructure needs in vulnerable and rural communities, such as fire hydrants or water storage tanks.
  • Seek funding to implement local Community Centers and communication trees, both by phone and in-person, such as the Neighborhood Emergency Services Team (NEST) program in Petrolia, Humboldt County.
  • Explore options for updating addressing in remote, rural areas to ensure effective notification and emergency response, such as geo-tagging. See Yolo County program for a model.

  • Expand wildfire and debris flow detection systems throughout the region.
    • Work with Tribes, federal and state agencies, local fire agencies, and water agencies to identify gaps in existing wildfire and landslide alert and detection systems.
    • Improve the regional fire detection system by expanding the ALERTWildfire camera network to fill identified gaps and link to local websites.
    • Install weather monitoring stations at strategic locations throughout the region to detect high fire danger weather conditions.
    • Review outcomes of Sonoma County’s FireScout AI fire detection software and if effective, investigate expanding this technology to the rest of the region.
    • Establish a regional network of stream and rain gauges to detect conditions that may lead to landslides, debris flows or movement of toxins. Coordinate and expand on existing USGS gauges where feasible.
    • Strategically locate detection equipment in relation to ingress/egress routes and critical community infrastructure (e.g. water supply, energy generation, medical services).
  • Expand emergency notification and communication channels in the North Coast region.
    • Facilitate Zonehaven contracts with remaining NCRP counties, and Tribes, to assist local, countywide, and regional evacuation preparedness.
    • Work with National Weather Service to establish a non-optional, Amber-alert type evacuation notification system for wildfire events.
    • Expand citizen-driven communication channels such as the Watch Duty app throughout the region.
    • Develop alternative emergency notification and communication methods for areas with technical challenges such as limited cellular and broadband service. See Mendocino Fire Safe Council Neighborhood Communications Guide.

  • Compile and analyze road data to identify important evacuation routes and areas with only one way out, identify gaps, downscale state and federal data and guidance, and provide local information to state and federal databases. This includes reviewing existing road inventories collected for other purposes (i.e., road related sediment sources) to determine suitability for evacuation route information.
    • Utilize existing Direct Inventory of Roads and Treatments (DIRT) databases in Del Norte, Mendocino, Trinity, and Siskiyou Counties that contain information about road dimensions, surface type, drainage infrastructure, and condition that may be useful to help assess evacuation route deficiencies.
    • Identify road constraints to guide land use decisions: map county and private roads within State Responsibility Area (SRA) that are substandard for emergency access using adopted State Fire Safe Regulations and county criteria and use these criteria for cities within the region that have similar evacuation/access problems.
    • Improve Regional Transportation Plans (RTP) to identify and upgrade escape and evacuation routes for all disaster types.
  • Identify what resources Tribes, counties, and municipalities need to do effective evacuation planning, including identification of primary and secondary evacuation routes and needed fuel-hazard reduction along these routes.
    • Train Tribal and county offices of emergency services (OES) and municipal planners and provide necessary related resources to identify primary and secondary evacuation routes.
    • Facilitate state funding for effective, local evacuation route identification throughout the region, particularly in Tribal and other rural areas.
    • Coordinate with county roads and CalTrans District representatives, CAL FIRE Units, countywide Fire Safe Councils and Resource Conservation Districts, fire departments, Tribal and county OES, and county planning and public works staff to identify priority evacuation areas for fuel-hazard reduction and/or other roadway improvements to facilitate effective evacuation.
  • Facilitate Community Fire Liaisons to work with law enforcement and Tribal and county OES to identify and share safe zones in and near communities where there is a potential for residents to evacuate and shelter in place in case of high-severity wildfire.

  • Increase coordination among agencies and organizations delivering community evacuation preparedness education.
    • Develop and prioritize partnerships with CBOs that can deliver outreach and resources to high-needs and underserved communities, including low-income, elderly, disabled, limited-English, and carless community members.
    • Fund and facilitate community education about evacuation preparedness by local OES, Fire Safe Councils, VFDs, CBOs, and others.
  • Support formation of Communities Organized to Prepare for Emergencies (COPE) groups throughout the region.
  • Update Living with Wildfire in Northwestern California, develop equivalent resources for other areas of the region, and disseminate information through multiple channels.
  • Implement the CAL FIRE Ready, Set, Go program in communities throughout the North Coast region.
  • Implement a coordinated public education and outreach campaign on the benefits of evacuating early, the pros and cons of sheltering in place (stay and defend), and what is required to do so safely. Incorporate plans and experiences from countries like Australia with more robust “Stay and Defend or Leave Early” (SDLE) policies.
    • Conduct research and surveys about rural residents’ attitudes toward evacuation vs. shelter in place, whether they are prepared to stay and defend safely, what services they would need to do so (including expansion of local fire-fighting resources), and what factors would make them more likely to evacuate (i.e., safe egress routes, clear understanding of where to go and where to take livestock, etc.).

References and Resources

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