NorCal FPO Wildland Urban Interface Committee
Meeting Minutes
Sacramento, CA.
March 28,2003

 

Present: Kate Dargan - CDF/NapaCounty Fire, WUI Committee Co-Chair

Bill Robertson - CDF/ Pebble Beach Community Services District

Keith Burson -South Placer Fire District

Mark McClure - Roseville Fire

Bill Tyler - Novato Fire 

Discussion about the courses that were developed by the OSFM to train people how to inspect property for defensible space and community planning in the Wildland Urban Interface. The 16-hour course teaches the planner how to integrate wildland fire protection components into the planning phase of a community development project. There is a three week defensible space inspector course that teaches prospective inspectors how to use the BEHAVE computer modeling, WUI codes, vegetation classification. This information prepares the inspector in making sound analysis for defensible space.

Co-Chair Dargan would like to see the defensible space requirement taken one step further by taking the inspection process out of the hands of the fire agency and into the private sector. This would be similar to the fire extinguisher requirements and licensing of qualified people. When the inspection courses were first introduced, there was not much interest and the classes were shelved. Kate Dargan feels that there is a growing interest especially from the insurance industry for this information and the time may be right to resurrect the classes and offer them. She would like to see a licensing program to ensure quality inspections and that inspectors would have to be kept current in order for the inspections to be valid. Whenever a home gets built, remodeled or sold, it could be the AHJ requirement to have a documented inspection by this third party in order to approve permits or the property to be sold. These WUI inspections will be for profit by the third party company.

The committee agreed to look into any legislation regarding WUI and its members become aware of upcoming initiatives.

OSFM need to have statutory regulation AB 1216 to change the language giving OSFM to propose standards to the exterior of single family dwellings in the Wildland Urban Interface. The process is still in committee. 

There was discussion of fire hazard severity zones and how the insurance industry is using that information to deny insurance or increase rates for specific areas.

Some immediate goals the committee set were to put together information packets for the WUI courses that would consist of course description for the Wildland Urban Interface Code, NFPA, CE's for the classes and an overview of the curriculum. It also needs to be determined who would be certified to teach the class. It is the objective to get this out to the FPO's for review.