In the last few years, we have seen devastating fires in the Sierra, Santa Rosa, Lake County, Oakland, and most recently, Los Angeles. Richmond is not immune.

Both the City of Richmond and the State of California Fire Marshal have established multiple Fire Hazard Zones in and adjacent to Richmond.

Figure 1 - State designated Fire Hazard Severity Safety Zone

Figure 2 - City of Richmond Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones

Richmond adopted RMC 8.16.080 to enforce conditions on buildings in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones and required removal of flammable plant material. The Fire Department no longer conducts inspections or enforcement actions under RMC 8.16.080, which includes:

Vegetation Management Standards in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. Any person who owns, leases, controls, operates, or maintains any property in a very high fire hazard severity zone shall maintain such property in conformance with the most current vegetation maintenance standards established by the City Council by Resolution 192-95, or said resolution's successor. Copies of Resolution 192-95 and any successor resolution shall be maintained by and be available in the City Clerk's Office.”

Nor does the City fully enforce RMC 9.80, Weed and Rubbish Abatement. All 3,000 acres of Chevron property are within a Richmond Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, but the City has never compelled Chevron to comply with either RMC 8.16.080 or RMC 9.80.

East Bay Regional Parks District owns tens of thousands of acres in or adjacent to Richmond, and even though EBRPD has stepped up its fire safety mitigation measures in the last couple of years, it is a tiny fraction of what needs to be done.

The City of Richmond, itself, owns significant fire-prone properties, including Point Molate, paper streets, and various surplus property parcels, but does almost nothing to eliminate fire hazards. If The City Council had not pulled the plug on the Point Molate sale to SunCal, fire hazard mitigation would have already been underway. Instead, it is getting worse. Back on the 1960s, developers in El Sobrante “generously” donated the undevelopable remnants of subdivisions to the City of Richmond instead of retaining maintenance responsibility. All of these are now fire hazards and are the responsibility of anyone who pays taxes in Richmond.

The only City Council member who has taken an interest in these extreme fire hazards is Soheila Bana, who established the West Contra Costa Fire Safe Council, meeting today at 1:00 PM.