REMEMBERING
by Doug Halter Halter-Encinas Enterprises and Landscape
As a professional landscaper, hillside resident and passionate Ventura resident, the Thomas Fire will always be major heartbreaking and unbelievable experience in my lifetime. To see the fire come over the hill and into mine and our neighbors’ yards, then spread from house to house until it hit the heart of downtown left many of us speechless and in shock that still brings tears and emotions to many of us as the City that we love and our homes and memories were threatened by this horrific event. Many lessons were learned as we watched the flames leap from trees to house eaves, and our wood fences became highways of flames only to devour the next unsuspecting home owner and sanctuary.
As a landscaper, over the next several months, I had appointments with many of the people who lost their homes or some of the thousands that had damage and each day brought tears and memories of that horrifying night. Everyone had a story that needed to be shared if for no other reason than to help heal and know the horror we all experienced that night.
Now, a year later, I see many things that I would hope we can all do to prevent or minimize the impact of another wildfire.
First, I would make sure that vines, shrubs and trees are at least 10 ft from the house and not growing on or over it. Second, I would serious consider block walls and not wood fencing as many people called to thank me for the walls we created as they saved their house from being destroyed as my own saved our house. Third, we should consider solar power with battery backups to run sprinklers in our yard, and for some of us to, to run sprinklers that we can install on our rooftops.
From a City perspective I would hope that we would be better prepared with more redundancy on our water system so that our fire fighters have a chance at saving our neighborhoods. And lastly, I believe that we were allowed to grow our neighborhoods up the sloping hillsides without any consideration of a firebreak, green space or orchards that can help slow the fire.
Our persistent drought also added to the spread of the fire as many of our once manicured and green yards lay barren with dead weeds or grass. Many plants like Eucalyptus, Pine trees and Mexican sage exploded with flames and I would keep these specimens far from any house; still the embers may still blow into homes many blocks away. Perhaps part of the plan should be to use reclaimed water to keep the first 200 ft behind our neighborhoods green as a buffer.
Now, let’s rebuild our neighbors, use smart yet water wise plantings and together make our community better than ever!
