California Coast & Ocean

The back-to-back fires in southern California have galvanized communities to adopt more fire-safe building codes. Many new subdivisions are building in fire-safe features. After my visit to Hellhole Canyon with Halsey and Howell, we stopped at a new subdivision, Eureka Springs, in Escondido, where freshly painted pastel bungalows popped out against the background of brown mountains. A 100-foot fuel modification zone separated the homes from the chaparral. After a long silence, Halsey said: "I'm impressed."

Building codes for roofing construction and attic venting have improved. The vents in these houses are designed to prevent embers from blowing into attics. "The number-one cause for homes to ignite are embers," Halsey said. "Embers can sit smoldering for hours, even days, which means that even after the wildfire is under control, more houses are lost."

A chain-link fence ran the length of the tract, parallel to the hills. Beyond the fence, the native plants were irrigated, so they wouldn't dry out. A park was located along the community's edge rather than in the center, to keep fires at bay and give firefighters defensible space. "There's no reason to evacuate this place at all," Halsey said.

A few minutes later, we drove by a hillside mansion that sent him into a fit. For 400 feet around the house, the slopes had been given a buzz cut. "That's obscene," Halsey said. "That's not a fuel modification zone," Howell added, "that's a moat."

Some insurance companies demand 1,000 feet of brush clearance around a house. Homeowners who comply raze large swaths of native shrubs.

"We're building safer communities," Halsey said. "However, we're still building some homes in unsafe areas. To make them safe, the resources damage we're causing is inexcusable. I see 500 feet of clearance as not worth the house."

It took millions of years for native shrubs and wildlife to adapt to California's climate and fire cycle. They are the state's most common plant community. But it has taken humans less than a century to alter the fire regime so much that native plants and animals cannot keep pace. Whether we like it or not, Californian's past and future are tangled up in the thorny scrub of manzanita, black sage, and other native shrubs. With the conversion of shrubs to grasses, wildland fires are likely to become even more frequent.

Joseph Sorrentino, an independent journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area, began his research on chaparral and wildfire as a Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder during 2007-08. His articles have appeared in High Country News and other publications.

A new edition of Richard W. Halsey's Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California has just been published by Sunbelt Publications (www.sunbeltbooks.com). It includes lessons learned from the 2007 fires.