Chapter 4

Stonegate’s  Initial Fire Protection Plan (Draft FPP)

The Stonegate/Merriam Mountain development is located in a high-fire-hazard severity zone that also happens to be a State Responsibility Area (SRA). By state law, the developer of the 2,700-home development must submit what is called a Fire Protection Plan (FPP). The authority to require Fire Protection Plans can be found under the California Fire Code, Article 86. Any project that does not comply with the intent of Article 86 (i.e., fails to demonstrate that there will be no significant risk of injury or death to the residents of a development in the event of a wildland fire) may result in a decision to redesign that project or have the project face denial based on its failure to comply with the existing state law. The purpose of the FPP is to assess the potential impacts resulting from wildland fire and identify the measures necessary to adequately mitigate those impacts.

(Comment: Simply stated, state law requires that in order for a housing development proposal to be approved, there must be no significant risk of injury or death from wildland fire. The FPP is the document produced by the developer that shows how any risk is adequately mitigated to render the risk of injury or death from wildfire less than significant).[1]

A Fire Protection Plan is supposed to address, among other things, the fire codes and requirements that make a development safer (including setbacks from flammable brush and plants, wide roads and turnarounds for fire trucks, sprinklers in the home, class A roofs, boxed eaves, etc.). These codes and rules came about to help firefighters save structures in the WUI after the residents had been evacuated. A second part of the Fire Protection Plan is supposed to address a worst-case wildland fire scenario and show how life can be protected. This came about after planners realized that building in the WUI, which was formerly sparsely inhabited, will now pose a threat to an increasingly significant number of people. Concerns about evacuation planning and emergency services have steadily grown (as reflected in the 2005 San Diego County Prefire Planning study). These concerns, however, have been consistently ignored by developers as well as the County Supervisors who are responsible for approving developments.  Stonegate has been one of the few developments criticized by community residents for not fulfilling the obligation to protect life in the event of a major wildfire occurring in or near the development during Santa Ana wind conditions. This worst-case wildfire scenario was called “Fire Condition One” by Stonegate developers and the conclusion was reached by Stonegate’s own fire experts that timely evacuation would be impossible because of the predicted extreme rate of burning and density of population. Stonegate’s original Fire Protection Plan (upon which the project was predicated) was based on the concept of shelter-in-place (remaining in one’s house during the fire). Whether staying put is even possible (i.e., preparing one’s house by closing windows, opening drapes, gathering loved ones and pets from different areas, making sure the home’s outside is clear of flammable objects and, most of all, denying the human instinct to flee) is unknown and highly unlikely (see Scenario 1, Chapter 3). Stonegate’s initial FPP can be found in Appendix A.

Stonegate’s initial draft FPP incredulously claims in its introduction:

“The Merriam Mountains development has been designed so that the entire development will survive a “worst case” wildfire incident without any structure loss and without loss of life and will not require the intervention of the Deer Springs Fire Protection District and surrounding mutual aid Fire Departments, thereby allowing these fire fighting resources to concentrate on containing and checking the spread of the wildfire.”

Comment: The developer says the 10,000+ people trapped in a wildland fire atop a flammable mountain (described by the CDF as a very high severity fire hazard zone) will not even need any firefighters. The developer had decided that all those lives will be just fine because they say so. There has never been a situation where evacuation did not take place in a wildland fire---resulting in 10,000 people being trapped---but the fire consultants paid for by Newland Communities and Stonegate suggest that this is a worthwhile experiment for this housing development – and that it does not represent a significant risk.

The rest of the FPP is filled with statements about the spread of fire based on computer models when it is a universally accepted fact that wildfire is highly unpredictable and, moreover, spreads because of firebrands and embers that are wind-driven. It has been conclusively proven that these firebrands will start spot fires and will burn down some homes regardless of the “fire-resistant” building materials[2]. A large portion of Stonegate’s FPP is filled up with lists of plants and data from computers to obfuscate the real problem with the plan and what happens to residents in the event of a worst-case wildland fire scenario. In an appendix on evacuation, the developer states that 3,500 cars can be evacuated onto Deer Springs Road within one hour (translating into a rate of one car per second!) and 1,000 more cars can be evacuated through the smoke-filled area of burning natural habitat (the very danger zone through which the wildfire is predicted to advance). The developer goes on to state: “Follow directions and drive carefully given, that visibility may be extremely poor due to heavy smoke.”[3] Yet cars are expected to whiz out of the development at the rate of one car per second, according to the developer's estimates. Stonegate's numbers are obviously bogus and have no basis in reality. However, if you are going to lie and state that people can stay at home in the midst of a wildfire, you might as well lie about how many cars can be moved through a fire. There is no possibility that so many people can evacuate in a fast-moving wildfire with smoke and, if they try, they will be caught in a late evacuation (the worst of all fates). The developer put forward a separate document entitled “Stonegate’s Conceptual Wildfire Life Safety & Sheltering Plan” in which they state that evacuation is not possible in a worst case scenario and that the development relies on a shelter-in-place strategy.

Curt Grieve, fire consultant for Stonegate, wrote to the Deer Springs Fire Chief on May 8, 2006 regarding Stonegate’s Fire Protection Plan: “It is my understanding that the Fire Protection Plan has been revised to meet all of the County of San Diego’s and the State of California’s adopted codes and regulations as well as those codes and ordinances adopted by the Deer Springs Fire Protection District. It is also my understanding that we have responded appropriately and accurately to the last round of comments received from Fire Marshal Susan Magdaleno. At this time we are looking for written acceptance and approval by the end of next week so we can submit to the County in accordance with their requirements.”[4]

The community presented its first paper to the Deer Springs Fire Board on May 10, and the FPP approval thereafter did not occur. Community intervention happened in the nick of time, as there is no doubt that the draft FPP would have been approved. No one cared whether the project posed a significant risk to residents in a serious wildfire scenario – not the developer, not the state, not CalFire (even though the project was located in a State Responsibility Area), not the old Deer Springs Fire District Board and not the County. It was a telling display of how the government failed to protect the public, requiring individual citizens to stand up and blow the whistle, especially when the whistle blowers would have to tangle with the powerful County Supervisors and special interests who run San Diego County.

When the community spoke up and changed the course of events, the media (newspapers and local TV) quickly became involved. The Supervisors must have felt the heat, for instructions came down from on high that shelter-in-place was too hot to handle. The Supervisors apparently instructed their surrogates at the planning unit to get rid of those words in Stonegate’s FPP. They also instructed the Deer Springs Fire Chief and Fire Marshal to sign a document stating that Stonegate’s FPP should make no mention whatsoever of the phrase “shelter-in-place.”

DRAFT FIRE PROTECTION PLAN REJECTED BY THE COUNTY

(thanks to the bad publicity that shelter-in-place received)

In an August 31, 2006 letter signed by San Diego County Fire Marshal Paul Dawson, Deer Springs Fire Chief Rich Bolton and Deer Springs Fire Marshal Susan Magdaleno and sent to Bill Stocks, County Project Manager for the Stonegate development, it was clearly stated that Stonegate’s draft Protection Plan was not acceptable.[5] It stated that shelter-in-place was not conceptually appropriate for the Merriam Mountain site and all reference to SIP should be removed and the phrase not mentioned. It also listed 42 conditions that had to be met to gain approval for the FPP from the County and the Fire District.

Was this a victory for rational behavior?  It appeared so. After all, the developer had already admitted that the development could not be evacuated in case of a fast-burning wildland fire (defined as Fire Condition One in Stonegate’s Fire Safety Conceptual Draft of June 2006). The developer had already stated on several occasions that the development was predicated on SIP. Thus, if one cannot evacuate and one cannot shelter-in-place, what exactly is one to do in a wildfire? County Project Manager Bill Stocks was asked that very question in an e-mail and failed to reply.[6] On an examination of DPLU records, Stocks referred that very question to the fire personnel of the County –

“….I’ll ask you for ideas on how to respond to the  following question that he posed: ‘How can the safety of the residents of Merriam Mountain be assured in a Fire Condition One given the predicted intensity and speed of the fire and the density and location of the population?”[7]

It was an impossible question to answer and he wanted to know how to reply. Why not ask the developer that question? It was pretty obvious that the DPLU was told by the Supervisors to approve the FPP, no matter how inadequate the Fire Protect Plan may be.

At first, it appeared that the dangerous Stonegate project was headed for defeat. But Stonegate was unfazed and took the attitude that if the County didn’t want SIP, it would not hear SIP. Joe Perring (spokesman for Stonegate) said “One of their (County’s) comments was that they did not want references made to it (SIP) in the fire protection plan and that’s fine. That’s their call. But we believe and my consultants believe our project will survive a wildfire, and I believe them.”[8]. Helicopters buzzed over the proposed project site for weeks looking for a way out. None was found. However, Stonegate was promised approval by the Supervisors so long as they got the development through the lower-tier process and into the hands of the Supervisors (recall the Stonegate papers). The truth didn’t matter. Safety didn’t matter.

Community members spoke to Rich Bolton, the Fire Chief at Deer Springs at that time, who said:   “If it wasn’t for you people (the anti-Stonegate contingent), then SIP could be used in this development.”[9] This is an odd statement coming from someone who just signed his name to a letter stating that SIP was inappropriate for this project and should not be used. The situation became clear. The groundwork done in exposing and publicizing Stonegate and the shelter-in-place charade had been successful. Numerous newspaper articles, television coverage by all the major local networks, and damning information sent to each Supervisor had opened up some eyes.[10] Perhaps Horn had been told by the other Supervisors that they couldn’t vote for his project if SIP was included. Horn told the DPLU to get SIP out of the Fire Protection Plan and the lesser players in the process (Bolton, Magdaleno, and Dawson) complied.

The actual letter of rejection of the FPP is contained in the Appendix.   However, certain salient elements need to be emphasized.

The AUGUST 31, 2006 FPP REJECTION LETTER

There were certain items in the County’s rejection letter that bear scrutiny because of their implications for any future revised Fire Protection Plan that would be written by the developer. These statements are taken directly from that letter:

            Item 23  5.1.13 {of the submitted Fire Protection Plan} states that the “entire project” has been designed as a “Shelter-In-Place” community… the DSFPD Fire Chief and County Fire Marshal’s Office do not consider this site as appropriate for Shelter-In-Place or “Defend In Place.” Please remove the references.

            Item 24  ... It seems appropriate that the roads be wider than the minimum required by the Fire Code … The Statement should be made in the FPP that Deer Springs Fire Protection District {Marshal or Fire Chief crossed out} determine how much wider than the fire code minimum is appropriate for major evacuations, given the terrain and road design.

Comment: Note how evacuation seems to be recognized as important. Also note for later reference that the Fire District is given authority by the County to decide on elements of the Fire Protection Plan and the Fire Marshal and the Fire Chief are purposely crossed out.

            Item 35 … Shelter-In-Place or Defend in Place is not an appropriate concept for this project.

Comment: The concept of SIP at Merriam Mountains is deemed inappropriate,  in addition to the phrase itself..

            Item 36… Evacuation Route.  Delete this section entirely. Evacuation Planning is a law enforcement responsibility.

Comment: No one does evacuation planning with regard to a proposed development, including law enforcement, even though they most certainly need to be involved and there is certainly no collaboration about evacuation. The FPP must address evacuation since it will affect greatly whether the proposed project will impose a significant risk of injury or death in the event of wildfire. This is necessary to satisfy state law and comply with the Public Resource Codes. This is the essence of article 86 of the California Fire Code and a crucial part of any fire protection plan. However, the County is now trying to give the developer an out and say evacuation is not their responsibility.

            Item 37 Ongoing Fire maintenance  …must be prepared by the Developer’s FPP consultant and be approved by Deer Springs Fire Protection District.

Comment: The District has the right and obligation to approve parts of the FPP. It is not excluded from the approval process. This will be important in the future.

            Item 41 …should the tentative map be modified …the FPP may be required to be revised by the Deer Springs Fire Protection District or County Fire Marshal and must be approved by both.

Comment: Again the District Board is recognized as a body that must approve the Fire Protection Plan for it to be acceptable. This will become important later.

This letter in its entirety can be found in Appendix. In summary, the salient features are that shelter-in-place was found to be unacceptable in name and concept for the Stonegate project. The County decided that timely evacuation as a prerequisite for approval would be ignored. They said that this was the responsibility of law enforcement (not true with regard to the planning process). However, the County still made multiple references to evacuation as if it were an important part of fire protection (which it clearly is).

Comment: This schizophrenic attitude toward evacuation is rampant throughout the planning process for developments. If residents cannot evacuate during a wildland fire, there is a significant risk of injury or death, rendering the Fire Protection Plan inadequate with regard to state law. The project should not proceed.

 In addition, specific references were made about the Deer Springs Fire District Board. They were given explicit approval authority over the FPP.

After August 31, everything was put on hold while the 2006 Fire Board elections moved to the forefront.