Here’s an example of how a lone voice can halt big mistakes.
“It wasn’t a bad catch,” said George Haines, state unit fire chief in Monterey and San Benito counties.
When I spoke out on this issue, all the Fire “experts” and lawyers said I was wrong. They said that the County’s best fire experts had met many times over the course of a year – and that there was no problem.
Well, that’s one way to prevent forest fires
Professor Toro
Last Updated: 11/03/2007 01:39:34 AM PDT
Local fire officials credit environmental activist David Dilworth with catching botched language in a rewrite of rural fire safety rules. Dilworth, executive director of Helping Our Peninsula’s Environment, spotted the blooper in a 24-page ordinance that went before directors of the Pebble Beach Community Services District last week to incorporate new state fire codes.
As written, the new law would have required property owners to remove combustible vegetation within 100 feet of their homes or to their property lines — whichever is greater.
The way Dilworth saw it, that would lead to widespread denuding of the natural flora in the Del Monte Forest — Monterey pines, endangered flowers and the like — from property line to property line.
That “greater” should have been “lesser,” fire officials acknowledged, in keeping with 2005 changes in the state fire code that call for five-savvy management of plants within 100 feet of structures.
“It wasn’t a bad catch,” said George Haines, state unit fire chief in Monterey and San Benito counties. The language, being adopted by many local fire departments, is being changed to drop any mention of distances or property lines in favor of a simple reference to the state Public Resources Code, Haines said.
Directors of the Pebble Beach district will take another look at the ordinance Dec. 8. The wordsmithery lends another possible meaning to the environmental group’s acronym, HOPE — Helping Our Peninsula’s English. Well, that’s one way to prevent forest fires.
Professor Toro
