OUTCOME: Community Health and Safety

Problem

Poorly maintained roads are a wildfire ignition hazard and limit safe ingress and egress during an emergency. However, proper maintenance is costly, must be completed on a regular basis, and requires coordination across multiple groups.

Solution

Fire Safe Roads - Support planning, implementation, and maintenance to create fire-safe roads and reduce road-related ignitions.

Background and Context

Roads enable wildfire ignitions by providing access to humans who start the vast majority of wildfires. Properly maintained roads reduce the potential for fires to spread and provide safe emergency access and evacuation routes, as well as ingress for firefighters and other first responders. They can also function as anchors for fuel breaks, PODs, PCLs, and other defensive lines for fire response. Proper road maintenance includes brush and vegetation clearing and thinning along roadways. Given the variety of land ownership in the region, this work must be coordinated with CalTrans, local road departments, and across multiple jurisdictions. Private landowners in rural and Tribal areas may need assistance – both financial and technical – with creating a shaded fuel break or Defensible Fuel Profile Zone along the roads for which they are responsible. Road maintenance projects are not one-and-done projects, they require ongoing maintenance; grants, contracts, and projects must include this regular maintenance component. The substantial amount of vegetation management that is needed along the region’s roads make this work especially suitable for year-round local crews, including as part of workforce training or apprenticeship programs.

Recommendations

In collaboration with communities and fire personnel, identify, plan, and prioritize road maintenance projects and the coordination of local crews to implement projects. Map highest priority roads in need of treatment and maintenance in the region, coordinate with responsible parties to assess capacity for carrying out road projects, and identify where assistance is needed and how it can best be provided. Priorities include hazardous fuel reduction along arterial and collector roads for safe and effective evacuation, potential control lines, and ignition reduction.

In addition to wildfire-related issues, flooding and flood-related road closures are an issue for Tribal and rural communities. Short, torrential downpours can cause flooding in local creeks and streams, particularly when culverts and roadside drainage is damaged or degraded. Roads with a history of flood-related closures should be identified, mapped, and prioritized for repair.

Actions

  • Map hazardous fuels along arterial and collector roads to identify highest priority areas for treatment. Identify if priority is for evacuation, ignition reduction, and/or potential control location.
  • Review regional PODs mapping to identify priority fire-suppression Potential Control Lines along roads as potential priorities.
  • Map all roads into and out of Tribal areas and identify highest priority areas for treatment.
  • Map roads with high occurrence of ignitions as priorities for treatment.
  • Identify priority evacuation roads with structural issues (i.e., landslides) that need repair or upgrading.
  • Identify strategic fuels treatments on otherwise obsolete forest access roads and treat in conjunction with decommissioning.
  • Identify roads with a history of flood-related closures and prioritize them for repair and upgrade.
  • Compile and analyze existing road inventories collected for other purposes (i.e., road related sediment sources) to determine locations of infrastructure particularly susceptible to fire (i.e., plastic culverts).
  • Use local knowledge of road conditions to inform and update existing road inventories.

  • Identify and prioritize state funding for creating Defensible Fuel Profile Zones along all primary and secondary evacuation routes.
  • Encourage maintenance of shaded fuel breaks along roads rather than scorched-earth clearing of all roadside vegetation.
  • Work to improve USFS road corridors for evacuation, or provide funding to co-operators where federal/residential lands are intermingled.
  • Support communities to participate in the prioritization, implementation, and maintenance of state highway fuel treatment projects. This includes adding signage on rural roads with high occurrence of ignitions so that travelers can ensure their vehicles do not pose an ignition hazard (i.e., reminders to secure trailer chains positioned before turnouts).
  • Identify funding sources for road structural upgrades.
  • Work with county roads departments and CalTrans to ensure hazardous fuels are treated in conjunction with any other current or planned public road improvement projects.
  • Create mechanisms to ensure that local road treatment projects are implemented by local businesses and crews where feasible and that all projects and contracts include a return maintenance component.
  • Identify and evaluate workforce development and training programs that can achieve road treatment goals.
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