CORONA DEL MAR TODAY

Fire Chief Explains Fire Maps to CdM Audience

Newport Beach Fire Chief Scott Poster met with about 40 residents on Wednesday evening, explaining the seemingly flip-flopping position that Corona del Mar has on state fire hazard maps.

State law requires Newport Beach City Council to adopt a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone Map with special building and landscaping requirements for homes within the map. The state’s maps, which the Council considered in January, originally included most of Newport Coast as well as homes along Buck Gully and Morning Canyon and stretched from Orchid down to Crystal Cove. But the City Council declined to vote on that map, asking for more public outreach and refinement; read our story here.

Poster, who was sworn in as chief last month after that Council meeting, told the group at the OASIS Senior Center on Wednesday that he spent time reviewing the fire hazard zone, flying over it in an Orange County Fire Authority helicopter as well as studying maps, reviewing weather and wind conditions and more.

As a result of his studies, he suggested that most of Corona del Mar be removed from the fire hazard maps.

“We’re proposing to the state that their cautions are different than our calculations,” he said.

About 270 homes along Morning Canyon and mid and lower Buck Gully already are in fuel modification zones, which means city fire officials inspect and require clearing vegetation to limit fuel supplies in case of a wildland fire. Those restrictions are adequate, he said, without adding the homes to the state fire maps, which would mean even stricter landscaping and building requirements.

Homes along Upper Buck Gully would remain on the state’s maps, he said.

Audience members asked whether Poster thought that goats should be used to clear vegetation — he said no — and whether inspectors would require homeowners to remove all their trees and foot the bill.

“No,” he said. “You don’t have to cut your trees, but you have to make them safe.”

Another resident asked if removing vegetation could create erosion issues.

“I don’t think we’ll have erosion problems,” he said. “We’re not saying take the trees out. We’re talking reducing the vegetation. We’re not saying strip all the vegetation away.”

Poster showed video clips and images of wildland fires and ember storms, including fires that spared homes that had buffer zones around them.

“I do know that I want to protect your homes,” he said. “I do know that I need to keep my firefighters safe.”

The Corona del Mar Residents Association hosted the Wednesday meeting. Poster said he wanted to meet with other groups to address different neighborhoods’ specific concerns, and that he would meet one-on-one with homeowners to discuss individual properties.

Read our earlier stories here, here and here.