Kronick Shareholder Holly Roberson Quoted in Willits News article, February 22, 2021
Approximately 5,000 people evacuated safely from 2,000 homes in September 2020 when the Oak Fire broke out in Willits in Mendocino County, California. Fortunately, Sherwood Firewise Communities (SFC), an organization dedicated to creating and supporting fire adaptive and resilient communities, had previously secured two Emergency Access Routes on old logging and agricultural routes, which proved critical to the successful fire evacuation. The Brooktrails community was able to escape the flames using the existing two-lane road out of the forested subdivision of Brooktrails, while emergency response vehicles, fire trucks and water tanks used an alternative route to gain access to the fire and put it out before it could spread into the town.
Encouraged by this success, Kronick attorneys Holly Roberson, Olivia Clark, Kevin Flautt, and Kathleen Leuschen are working with SFC and the County of Mendocino to provide expert pro bono legal counsel to SFC to determine additional evacuation routes and to assist in setting up a County Service Area (CSA) benefit zone to pay for permanent maintenance of these essential emergency routes.
For years, one-way in and one-way out rural communities in California have been plagued by limited options for evacuation routes. In a community meeting in March of 2018, it was explained that the routes, which are on private property, were no longer viable due to a lack of ongoing funding for vegetation maintenance. Members of the community began planning for fire preparedness and to reopen the evacuation routes. The County, CalFire, local landowners and SFC, began working to solve the issue. In the end, all parties agree that the routes are necessary and legal, but they will only be used during an officially declared evacuation.
SFC and County Supervisor John Haschak presented the CSA benefit zone to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors at a recent February 2021 meeting and the Board unanimously voted to move the CSA forward and provide funding for the initial engineering reports for the project. Ultimately the affected members of the community will vote on the funding to create a permanent source of revenue to keep these essential routes viable.
Haschak said, “The County is using this Sherwood area as the pilot program to see if we can have communities that really want to create a safer model for themselves.”
Roberson said, “This is just so exciting to see the way the community has come together with… great leadership and political support. We are honored to be a part of it.”
This exciting pilot project explores the use of CSA benefits zones to create new emergency egress and access routes in California’s forested one-way in, one-way out communities. This cost-effective and community-led approach of re-purposing existing routes to create safer emergency response access may become a model for California communities looking for fast, safe, and low-cost ways to enhance their fire safety and preparedness options this summer.
For more information, see: www.sherwoodfirewise.org or contact Holly Roberson at Kronick, www.kmtg.com.