PARADISE — After losing the buildings on her property in 2018, Laurie Noble, owner of Noble Orchards, decided to switch to gravel when rebuilding.
“This was our solution,” said Noble, who is a member of the Butte County Fire Safe Council. “We have been in this house now for almost four years. In the fall of 2020, when it was completed and finalized, concrete was not readily available. It was getting very, very high in price. So we said fine, it’s six feet out, let’s just put gravel all around the house”
The Camp Fire forced many residents in the town of Paradise and surrounding communities to rethink landscaping and flora. Defensible space became a priority for the town and Butte County in an effort to build fire resilience. Last week the town announced that it had reached 90% compliance on defensible space.
A map showing the defensible space compliance throughout the town of Paradise, California as of Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. Green represents areas in compliance while red shows areas still trying to reach compliance. Blue marks areas that have been cited. (Town of Paradise/Contributed)
Paradise Community Development Director Tony Lindsey said much of this is thanks to the grant that has allowed three new employees whose primary focus is defensible space. Lindsey said the town now has two field employees who can meet with residents directly as well as one office employee.
“It’s really that one-on-one communication that helps,” Lindsey said.
The town also sends out notices in the mail, typically in the spring, to remind residents to work toward fire resistance.
Based on the town code, residents with homes on properties greater than one and a half acres also have to maintain 30 feet of defensible space from their neighbors’ homes while vacant lots must keep a full 100 feet from neighboring houses.
“Last year at this time we were at 74% compliance so we have less fire risk than we’ve had in the past three years,” Lindsey said.
Other requirements include keeping trees and other flammable biological materials away from electrical outlets and chimneys.
The town has also provided an interactive weed abatement map which can be found at townofparadise.com/fire/page/weed-abatement-map. This map is color coded with green properties representing compliance, red representing non-compliance and blue being cited properties.
Noble lost all of her buildings in the fire, but the vast majority of her orchard remained intact with only about 1% of trees lost.
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“We lost 11 buildings here but the orchard didn’t burn,” Noble said. “What was the difference? The fact that it had been irrigated, mowed, trimmed, etc.”
Overall, Noble’s home and the surrounding orchard have clear defensible space, though there is still some work to be done, Noble said. Going forward, Noble said the next big goal is to build additional storage so that certain equipment that was previously housed will no longer be sitting out.
“Part of it is we do not have storage facilities so we are having to store things outdoors that normally would be inside and contained,” Noble said. “And that is problematic. We know that.”
Noble said she hopes the next step for the town will be to deal with additional abatement for invasive plants.
“It’s a challenge,” Noble said. “It continues to be a challenge. There’s another part of the fire that we really need to see the town of Paradise deal with and that is some invasive weeds.”
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