About Cambria

As we all know the CCSD requires property owners to abate the weeds, downed trees, brush etc which might constitute a fire hazard. This must be done by July 1st or the work is put out to a private contractor. The cost of such work is added to the property tax bill along with a (haha gotcha) $400.00 “administrative” charge.

Well, it seems that the CCSD has gathered up 44 properties in their Build-out Reduction program and lo and behold they have determined that it is too expensive to clear their own lots. They have cleared a few inadequatly and others not at all. How this can be done legally while requiring it of others is troubling. (Lawsuits in the event of a fire) This has resulted in an increase in an always dangerous fire environment. I have taken pictures of a representative group of those lots – included below. The list of lots and comments can be downloaded here.

I have shared this information with the Cambrian with the expectation they would be interested in looking into this further but with no results. Hence this missive.

Yours for a fire safe community,

Reg Perkins

Update: Lot on Ramsey Original Picture:

Updated as of today (Sept 29):

Perhaps we can get San Luis Obispo County to give Cambria Fire Department a grant to buy gel that Cambria Residents Can spray on their homes. It is available. It works. Does Cambria F.D. have any gel they can use on their trucks?

The CCSD is good at getting grants….maybe they could get a grant for Fire Retardant Gel for the community.

While I applaud the efforts of the Fire Department, and their dedication to our safety, I wonder if I would be better protecting my house from burning down in a forest fire in Cambria if I had spent the $800.00 I paid ( for whacking down the forest floor on my property) on Fire Retardant Gel? Perhaps instead of more water tanks around town for Cambria firefighting, we could invest in some fire retardant gel systems. I think we could buy a LOT of gel for the cost we pay for water tanks.

Any thoughts, or experience with the gel?

You can also buy your own gel Barricade Home Kit

Complete Four 1-gallon containers with garden hose applicator and instructional DVD$685 ORDER ON LINE

Barricade Fire Gel has saved hundreds of homes in the United States

Barricade is now available to homeowners who can apply the water/gel coating on their own property in front of an approaching wildfire, before retreating to a safe area. When mixed with water at the end of a garden hose…

New Fire-Retardant Gel Can Save Homes

“Gel is a 21st-century tool. It has to become a mainstay of the fire service, and it’s not yet,” Waggoner said.

10-09-2007

By JOE KAFKA
Associated Press Writer

HOT SPRINGS, S.D. –

It was the most intense fire ever recorded in the Black Hills National Forest, but nearly all homes coated with a slimy gel were saved while dozens of houses nearby burned to the ground.

The gel was a super-absorbent polymer that can hold many times its weight in water and clings well to vertical surfaces and glass. It is mixed with water and then can be sprayed on homes with a truck-mounted hose or a backpack apparatus, or dropped from a plane.

The substance is relatively new to firefighting, having been developed about a decade ago, and is not widely used. But some firefighters who have tried it are impressed, saying it offers longer-lasting protection than the foam retardants that have been around for many years.

“This stuff really works,” Ed Waggoner of Reno, Nev., a retired California fire boss who now helps direct attacks on large forest fires in the Black Hills. “We’re talking about a water bubble that you put on your house two or three hours before the fire gets there, and it’ll save it when the fire gets there.”

Sabo has developed a $12,000-to-$20,000 gel system that can be attached to fire trucks and recently has begun to sell it to fire departments. (By comparison, a compressed-air foam system for a fire truck, which is what most fire departments use to protect homes, costs about $80,000.)

Read the rest of the article here.