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The devastating ordeal that Kimberly Giuliacci witnessed when she was deployed as a firefighter to the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise is something she doesn’t want Woodside and Portola Valley residents to ever have to go through if she can help it, and she believes she can.
“It wasn’t just driving through the area and seeing what these homes looked like, which was basically nothing except down to the ground,” said Giuliacci, now the fire marshal for the Woodside Fire Protection District, which encompasses Portola Valley, Emerald Hills, Ladera, Los Trancos and other communities.
People fleeing the state’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire told her there that “they could see the fire in the rearview mirror as they’re trying to get out with their cars and their families,” she said. “I would never want a resident here to experience that.”
Giuliacci recounted the sobering scenes this past week during council meetings in Woodside and Portola Valley. She was addressing council members about the fire district’s proposed new ordinance whose requirements include making property owners have a defensible space around their home, that is, clearing brush and other combustible vegetation or material within 100 feet of a structure on their land.
Leaders and residents from the towns and surrounding communities have acknowledged the need for measures against potential wildfire disasters given their highly wooded, vegetated environment.
But many of them have raised concerns about the costs, compliance difficulties and other challenges they could face if the ordinance is ultimately adopted by the district board.
They have also contended that not enough people know about the pending ordinance and urged the board to give it additional time and public review.
“Nobody that I have spoken to knows anything about this,” Woodside resident Suzanne Fouche said during that town’s council meeting on Tuesday, March 12. “It’s going to become a huge shock to a lot of people because the potential monetary liability is huge. It’s absolutely huge. And to bring that on people this quickly without having more information beforehand is going to be very difficult.”
But Portola Valley Council member Craig Taylor felt differently about the district’s community-engagement efforts.
“The outreach from the fire marshal has been fabulous,” he said during his council’s meeting the following day, March 13. “She’s worked with our wildfire-preparedness committee. She’s worked with our conservation committee. She and I have had a number of conversations. She’s worked with the public.”
Giuliacci noted that over the past few months the district has engaged the public on the work-in-progress ordinance through community workshops, informational fliers posted at local businesses and other means.
Based on the feedback, she said, the district has been adjusting a draft of the ordinance. “We made some modifications and changes,” she said.
A key revision made following the Woodside meeting was dropping a requirement for property owners to put in a defensible space even if a structure is on someone else’s adjacent parcel. Residents found this would-be stipulation unfair and potentially leading to much conflict between neighbors.
The Woodside council also pointed out that the effort to expand the development of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) due to the state’s housing mandates would further complicate the matter.
“That to me seems something you need to think hard about whether that makes it fair to the community at large,” Woodside Council member Dick Brown said during the meeting March 12.
The district did rethink that and “decided to remove the adjoining-parcel requirement completely out of the ordinance,” Giuliacci said in an email to this news organization.
However, she said, the district could reinstate that condition if the space around ADUs becomes problematic over the coming years.
Because setting up a defensible space could prove a financial burden on many residents, the Woodside council wondered if the district’s $33 million in reserves could be tapped to help.
“I would also love to hear ideas around how and to what extent we could use the $33 million that the fire district has in funds,” Woodside Mayor Jenn Wall said. “I would like to learn more about those funds if they are indeed available.”
District board President Matt Miller could not be reached for comment on that possible funding idea. Giuliacci declined to comment on the district’s finances but noted that they are posted on the agency’s website.
According to its final summary budget for 2023-24, the district has slightly more than $33 million in cash balance reserves.
Former Woodside Mayor Dave Burow agreed that fire-fuel mitigation is critical to the area.
“I’m a big believer in trying to reduce the amount of fuel and make our community safe from fires,” he said during the meeting in Woodside.
But he was worried about seeing the loss of perfectly good greenery around homes. “I didn’t find out until a month ago that junipers are a grave fire danger,” he said. And now we’re (targeting) properties that have junipers in the front. … I don’t understand. I mean, I just hope that we bring common sense to this.”
Giuliacci clarified that the ordinance would not require taking out all the vegetation on a property, including healthy trees. Rather, dead or dying vegetation and dry debris would need to be removed, she said.
Residents would have up to three years to comply with the ordinance, district leaders said, adding that the agency is not out to hunt down violators at every turn but would work in partnership with residents toward compliance.
“So it’s going to be over time,” Giuliacci said during the Woodside meeting. “We’re not in a hurry, but we are trying to, at the same time, educate and raise the awareness to people that we do need to start doing things.”
The district board is expected to review the latest draft of the ordinance on March 26 and could consider adopting it next month.
But that process gets pushed back every time the ordinance is amended, so residents could still have additional opportunities to weigh in on or study the proposal.
“Codes are always created out of tragedy,” Giuliacci said. “We only learn because of people dying. Well, we’re trying to prevent that here. So we’re trying to move forward for the greater good of our district.”
