After a delay, Berkeley is likely to move ahead with strict new vegetation management rules for hundreds of homes in the hills, although it would give homeowners nearly a year before any inspections for compliance thanks to a series of new directives for city staff that were developed during the pause.
Berkeley’s wide-reaching wildfire safety proposal is up for a second vote before the City Council on June 17. The new rules would, with narrow exceptions, ban anything flammable — vegetation and plantings, recycling containers and trellises, privacy walls and vehicles — within a 5-foot “Zone Zero” around all structures, decks and stairs. They largely mirror best practices state fire officials have championed for years.
The rules would apply to about 850 homes in Northeast Berkeley, which fire officials hope will act as a buffer or firebreak should a wildfire approach from Tilden Park. Several homes in the Panoramic Hill neighborhood, which is a challenge to evacuate and for fire trucks to reach, would also face the new restrictions.
The proposed rules are meant to protect against a very specific and crucial stage in a fire’s progress: The ember attack, or ember storm, when high winds push burning firebrands blocks or even miles ahead of a fireline. A wildfire well outside city limits could send burning embers into Berkeley’s neighborhoods. Those embers can ignite flammable material wherever they land, and if that flammable material happens to be next to a house, the ember storm can become an urban conflagration — an out-of-control chain reaction of burning buildings igniting other buildings…