New fire records for Sonoma County, north coast published by Cal Fire

In an update on February 24, Cal Fire released new Waldfeuer -Hazard cards for Sonoma County, the north coast and the Bay area on February 24th.

It is part of a nationwide, gradual introduction of new fire record cards according to an executive regulation of governor Gavin Newsom at the beginning of February.

They give a more detailed picture of the risk of fire, including new “moderate” and “high” danger areas, in addition to the name “very high” risk of fire.

The updated cards rely on new weather data and inputs such as Fire Rotation Info – if an area was previously burned – for areas in which Cal Fire or local fire brigade are responsible for fire fighting, as well as for the enforcement of fire protection standards.

According to the governor's office, the updated cards add 1.4 million tomorrow in California in “High” and “very high” fire use.

Jim McDougald from Cal Fire explained the concept of fire risk.

“Hazard is what the landscape is based on fire, fire intensity, slope, weather,” said McDougald. “These factors come together with the vegetation to say that the landscape has this danger.”

The updated cards increase the cultivation area of ​​”very high” severity areas in Cloverdale and in the non -legal Sonoma County, which now has over 7,500 acres in the “very high” zone.

However, the new cards reduce the cultivation area in “very high” severity levels in Santa Rosa compared to the 2011 maps; From over 1,600 hectares to only 475 to cover areas such as the Los Guillicos campus of the district and south of the Spring Lake.

A large part of Santa Rosa is still called “moderate” or “high” brandy as “high” fire zone.

Each city in Sonoma County has at least 100 acres in a moderate severe level zone.

McDougald said that the fire is different from the risk.

“It doesn't measure the risk,” said McDougald. “It does not measure the effects that this danger has. So let's assume that you have a house, we do not measure the effects that will have the danger on the house.”

The updated severity cards for fire risk are useful, according to McDougald, the planning decisions and regulations such as hardening rules for home hardening and the building deaths for Wildland -Städdbau.

“So it's really about building home during the building and in the security of the community … the maintenance of your reasonable space,” said McDougald. “The focus zones of the fire hazards are really related to the reductions that are necessary to build safer houses in areas with a risk of forest fire.”

According to the California Ministry of Insurance, the cards are not used for insurance decisions.

New rules that were introduced in 2022 require that insurers take into account the reduction efforts such as hardening in the home hardening, which according to McDougald, according to McDougald, are not recorded as part of the new cards of the new fire.

“Insurance companies look at the risk because they investigate the effects of the fire on a structure,” said McDougald. “So it is what you model and support your things. We just do it so that we know what reductions for this new building have to be set up. So they are very different because one of them is really risk of what insurance modeling is, and our is hazard modeling.”

The office of the state insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara found that a change in the hardswear zone of danger will not affect the insurance of a single homeowner, but his office also said that insurance companies support their decisions to their own alternative risk cards and models.

Comprehensive new fire Safe regulations for houses in “very high” danger zones, such as the maintenance of a reasonable space and the use of fireproof material, which are taken into account in the insurance risk, are developed by the California Forest Committee.

The Board of Directors for Forestry also checks the limits of state and local responsibility.