There’s a fairly slim agenda for Tuesday nights Redding City Council Meeting. One item is the adoption of fire hazard severity maps recently updated by the State Fire Marshal. Redding Fire Department has pointed out that “hazard”, as defined in this context, represents the expected fire behavior over a 30-to-50-year period. It’s used to identify areas where defensible space standards and wildland-urban interface building codes are required. However, “risk” is a different concept and takes into account the existing conditions based on wildfire mitigation efforts, actual defensible space and fire-resistant construction. Redding Fire Department urges people to learn about the zones in which their own homes lie. Information is available at reddingfire.org and fire.ca.gov. For the City of Redding, the very high severity zones have shifted, with 4,809 primary structures no longer in such a zone, but another 1,212 new structures on the west side are now included.
-Steve Gibson