[Your Full Name]
[Your Street Address]
[City, State, ZIP Code]
[Email Address]
[Title and name of elected official]
Re: Concern about CAL FIRE Zone 0 Committee buckling under pressure
Dear [Title/ name of elected official],
I am concerned: the CAL FIRE Zone 0 Committee has faced strong pushback from a massive disinformation campaign to ignore the science and weaken the regulations necessary to prevent wildfires. A similar disinformation campaign was recently successful in Oregon: How Oregon’s Wildfire Risk Map Became a Target for Misinformation — ProPublica.
The science is clear: as indicated by Governor Newsom’s Executive Order N-18-25, the area within five feet of a structure is the most critical to structure ignition during a wildfire. A very large consensus of wildfire scientists testifying in front of this committee supports Zone 0 science. Every firefighting professional testifying in front of this committee has endorsed strict Zone 0 defensible space requirements.
However, members of the Committee have recently shown more willingness to weaken regulations. At the last meeting, all Committee members appeared ready to allow more wood products in the construction of fences within Zone 0—when the presence of any combustible material goes directly counter to all the evidence presented. A member of the Committee, who works and lobbies for a logging company, expressed her wish to allow vegetation in Zone 0. With California worsening fire seasons, strict Zone 0 guidelines—including the removal of combustible vegetation and materials adjacent to structures—are both reasonable and essential.
I am very concerned to see the Committee weaken proposed Zone 0 regulations. The implementation and enforcement of Zone 0 and Zone 1 together may represent an inflection point in the history of disasters in California. Future generations may decide that we did not do enough in this step: they will certainly not judge that we did too much.
I live in the WUI. I don’t want to leave. In the past years wildfire risk has exploded. Getting insurance is becoming impossible. My home’s survival and possibly my life depend upon the Committee’s decisions: to me they are existential.
Please urge the Committee to stand firm against any efforts to weaken these requirements.
Thank you for your leadership.
Sincerely,
[Your Full Name]