Pima County supervisors eye wildfire mitigation

Pima County supervisors are backing
plans to shore up wildfire protections after two efforts received
support during Tuesday’s meeting.

The
Board of Supervisors OK’d directing county staff to develop a wildfire
danger mitigation plan and adding a sales tax referral for fire district
funding to the county’s lobbying agenda at the state Legislature. 
Supervisor Steve Christy, who represents Green Valley, added the
mitigation plan to Tuesday’s agenda, and Sahuarita’s Supervisor Matt
Heinz added the lobbying item.

Manage the land

The mitigation plan would
include enhancing the county’s clearing and brush management in
wildfire-prone areas and evaluating county property, especially
rights-of-way and conservation land, for regular and additional
clearing.

Christy’s
motion also included having the plan look at ways to help residents
clear private properties in wildfire-prone areas, “with direct
assistance in the disposal of brush and vegetation or through financial
incentives in remote regions of the county.”

The
agenda item originally called for county staff to report to the board
within 120 days with a draft plan and its fiscal impacts, but Christy
said he and his staff opted to cut that down to 90 days as summer draws
near.

Christy told supervisors the motion came in the wake of the Los Angeles-area fires, which burned for nearly a month.

The
Palisades Fire, the largest of them, began Jan. 7 and burned more than
23,700 acres. The 10 LA-area fires resulted in more than 200,000
evacuations, more than 50,500 acres burned and at least 29 deaths.

“Just
watching those horrific films and the quickness and tragic aftermath
it’s so impactful, but we’re deluding ourselves if we’re thinking that
it can’t happen here, because it has,” Christy said. “In 2017 alone we
had the Sawmill Fire in the Sahuarita/City of Tucson area — 47,000 acres
burned. We also had that year the Mulberry Fire, southeast of Vail —
2,000 acres burned.”

Christy
also noted the Burro Fire in the Catalina Mountains, which burned more
than 19,000 acres in 2017, and the Bighorn Fire in 2020 in the Catalinas
that burned nearly 120,000 acres.

Christy closed with historical fires going back to the early 2000s that burned tens of thousands of acres.

“So,
obviously, we have a situation that could be replicated here in Pima
County as it was in the Los Angeles area,” he told supervisors. “We have
similar topography, similar underbrush, similar environment, similar
flora — this is troubling and, of course, we’ve not only had the
potential, we’ve witnessed it as I’ve outlined.”

Christy said the community
wants to know Pima County is being a good neighbor and doing its part to
ensure public property isn’t contributing to wildfire risks. He added
the next fire season could be rough given the lack of precipitation the
county received through winter and present.

Christy also wants the county to find ways to help private property owners with reducing wildfire risk.

“We
can do that in a number of ways, providing woodchippers, dumpsters,
implements to remove and mitigate combustible materials,” he said. “But I
think it’s going to take a countywide effort of numerous agencies that
we have — the Office of Emergency Management, all of our law enforcement
agencies.”

A county
spokesman said the county doesn’t do prescribed burns, but it does
coordinate with other agencies doing them on adjacent lands. But he said
several county departments control properties with brushy fuels on them
that do regular removal maintenance.

The
county also works with volunteer groups to eradicate buffelgrass and
stinknet. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum reported buffelgrass fuels
larger and more frequent fires in areas surrounding Tucson.

The
county spokesman also said the Regional Flood Control District has used
goats in the past to help clear built-up fuels. He said the district
has plans to use them again in the future.

The
district launched a pilot project in the Midvale Park area on Tucson’s
southside last year, with 15-20 goats targeting buffelgrass. Flood
Control approved of the results and is talking to a consultant about a
bigger goat deployment in the Santa Cruz River reduce invasive grass and
restore native vegetation, the county reported. Nothing has been
finalized or decided on at this time.

Lesher told supervisors Tuesday
that county staff would be back within 90 days with an overall wildfire
mitigation draft plan for supervisors.

Sales tax

Christy also pointed to Heinz’s agenda item on supporting fire districts during his discussion on a mitigation plan.

“In
my own district, we have an area in Elephant Head that there is no
subscription services to fire districts — they have no fire protection,”
he said. “And that whole area, even if they did have a fire district
that they could subscribe to, they’re estimating 20-30 minutes to
respond to a fire in that area, and by then it’s too late.”

Helmet
Peak Volunteer Fire Department ended its service to Amado and Elephant
Head on July 1. In July, the Santa Rita Fire District’s board approved
offering service subscriptions in Amado and Elephant Head, with annual
fees based on square footage.

Supervisor
Jen Allen, whose District 3 includes Amado and Arivaca, also asked the
county to include information on fire districts in her area that might
also be underserved.

Heinz’s
agenda item to include a one-tenth cent countywide sales tax on the
county’s legislative lobbying list received unanimous support from the
board. The one-tenth cent would be “for the purpose of shoring up the
finances of all fire districts operating within the county.”

Heinz
said the lobbying is to get the Legislature to permit any county board
in Arizona to refer a countywide sales tax up to one-tenth of a cent to
support fire districts to its voters.

“This
is in response to a lot of things — we’ve seen what is going on in Los
Angeles, tragically, and we heard a lot about the need for fire
mitigation thanks to Supervisor Christy’s item from District 4,” Heinz
told the board. “This would be another tool, and it’s something that was
a statewide proposition in 2022, that was Proposition 310.”

Arizonans narrowly rejected
Prop. 310, with 51.8% voting no. But Pima County voters favored Prop.
310, with 52.6% voting yes. Heinz said that county voter support came
despite fewer wildfires compared to what is being seen this year.

Christy
supported Heinz’s motion, offering a second and adding it was timely as
well as needed for smaller or struggling fire districts. He also asked
Heinz if his office could research or refer out to someone what the
districts would need and how much funding it would take to accomplish
for later presentation to the community.

Heinz said his office is putting together a presentation from several at-risk fire districts for the board’s next meeting.

“And
there will be representatives from the firefighters in each of the fire
districts at the Feb. 18 meeting to kind of flesh this out more and to
provide a lot of the information you just listed,” he said.