Austin continues to address wildfire risk through training, community outreach

The Austin Fire Department delivered an update on the city’s wildfire prevention efforts to the Public Safety Commission on Monday.

The updates are mandated in the 2019 overhaul, which occurred after Austin was ranked among the top five most at-risk cities in the nation when it comes to wildfire damage.

The city and Travis County have an overarching wildfire protection plan in place, in accordance with national strategies designed to mitigate risk. The plans involve Community Wildfire Protection Plans, in which neighbors in high-risk areas work to reduce the ignitability of their homes and manage vegetation around their communities.

According to AFD, the city currently has 23 community wildfire protection plans in place and the department is working to establish another 24. Of the 14 percent of Austin classified as high risk, only about half is currently covered by a local protection plan.

Since 2019 changes to the Wildland-Urban Interface Code, more than 7,500 wildfire-resistant structures have been built in Austin.

“We continue to lead the pack as the largest municipality in the country to have adopted that wildfire-related code, and continue to implement that and are working to expand the code as appropriate,” said Justice Jones, Austin Fire Department’s wildfire division manager.

But there is still more work the Austin Fire Department and community partners, particularly private landowners, can do to lower the region’s wildfire damage risk.

The majority of Austin’s wildfire risk exists on privately owned land. That means a big part of AFD’s strategy involves community outreach. Since the last update, the department filled a vacant position for a Fire Adapted Communities coordinator, which is a position designed to train people within the community to become more resilient to fire and in turn help their neighbors prepare for fire events.

According to Jones, AFD has shifted to a partnership with the Homeland Security and Emergency Management office to host town hall meetings in the community. AFD has conducted five presentations and events on wildfire risk in the past six months, including virtual events such as the annual Wildfire Symposium.

“More and more the impacts we’re experiencing are associated with increased climate change, and, as you’ve figured out by our recent ice storm, those contribute to wildfire risk,” Jones said.

The wildfire division is also still conducting home assessments, and visited three homes in the past six months. But Jones said that doesn’t show the full picture of the impact. Those home assessments involve training that will go far beyond a single visit to a single homeowner.

“What’s happening is we’re building partnerships across fences,” Jones said. “They’re recognizing the risk that their home might pose to their neighbor’s house and they’re working together. So that number is exponential as far as the number of assessments that are conducted by community residents.”

Another component of wildfire risk is fuel mitigation. AFD previously served as fuel mitigation for large government landowners like Austin Water and the Austin Parks and Recreation Department, which left it less time to focus on educating private landowners that make up 70 percent of land in the area at risk. AFD Assistant Chief Executive Andre de la Reza said those government entities have built up their own fuel mitigation crews over time.

That means AFD is no longer the “stopgap” for those entities and it can restructure and focus on other aspects of prevention strategy.

“Now that we have fuel mitigation crews available for government landowners, we’re reorganizing so we can be direct advisers and work with that 70 percent that wasn’t addressed earlier,” said de la Reza. “So we’re going to be working with community members, with residents, with large businesses that have larger land – so that they can be fire aware and have well-treated lands.”

The department is also focused on shoring up its emergency response preparedness. Over the past six months, the department has received 825 training hours and conducted 8,769 training hours.

“What we’re doing is we’re one of the largest municipalities in Texas that is teaching and training our entire workforce to the nationally recognized Responding to the Interface training,” de la Reza said. “It’s going to take us a while to get everyone in the department through that, but we’re putting in a concerted effort towards that and it’s paying dividends.”

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