Bring Me A Shrubbery!!!!

We're really upset with the City of San Diego today.  Yesterday we received a "complaint" from the city fire inspector, telling us we need to get rid of the shrubbery behind our house to create a "defensible space" for fire protection.

Trumpet Creeper Jungle Behind the Fence

The reason we're so annoyed about this is that we really are true believers about the need to create this defensible space to protect property from the danger of wildfire.  We had a fire in our canyon three years ago and we have spent countless hours and thousands of dollars since then to lessen the danger and create a defensible space by cutting down a thirty foot high Eugenia hedge, by cutting back the jungle of Trumpet Creeper and Jade along the fence, and by having debris carted out of the canyon.  We had also planned to have more work done this next week on the area behind the fence because we want to plant a mini orchard back there at some point.

We know that area needs work, and we don't need the city to tell us to do it.  What makes it worse, however, is that next week that very same city also plans to repave our street--which really needs it--but that will make it impossible to get the truck in to haul away the debris that we cut out.  Arrrrgh.

Pine Tree With Dead Limbs

They also apparently want us to cut back the dead tree limbs that overhang our new rain harvesting system because they are close to the garage.  However, the pine tree with the dead limbs does not belong to us; it belongs to our next-door neighbor who refuses to recognize that the tree is dying and should be taken down completely.  So we'll have to pay more money to our arborist to take off the dead branches and possibly a couple that are still alive, and try not to "kill" the dying tree.

Red-Tailed Hawk Loves This Tree

Birds, especially large birds such as this hawk, love this tree because the top is dead and almost completely devoid of live branches, so they have an excellent view of potential prey in the canyon below.  The reason they have such a great view, of course, is that the entire top of the tree is dead.  It is no longer living; it has shuffled off this mortal coil; it has ceased to be; it...., oh, okay, back to the story.

Eugenia Hedge to Left of the House

One of the things we did several years ago was cut down the enormous Eugenia hedge on the north side of the house, on the left in this picture.  The hedge ran down along the property line to the edge of the canyon. It was about twenty feet tall at the front and about thirty feet high at the back end.  As far as fire danger went, that hedge would have provided a path and fuel for fire to race straight up from the canyon between the houses and could quite possibly have resulted in both houses burning.  So we cut the damn thing down, and that was the end of it.  Or so we thought.  Unfortunately, we didn't actually kill the roots, so it continues to grow back, and Eugenia grows very fast.

Eugenia Grows Back

The remnants of the hedge are part of the shrubbery we are going to take out this week.  This picture doesn't show it, but the ground slopes away very quickly under the shrubbery and it's difficult to maintain a footing so you don't end up sliding down the canyon on your butt.  Been there, done that, don't need to do it again.

One of the reasons we didn't kill the roots in the first place is that they help hold the soil in place and keep it from eroding into the canyon.

Steep Slope Into the Canyon

And that brings us to another problem with taking out shrubbery behind our house:  we're on the edge of the canyon, which drops off abruptly behind the boxwood hedge.  The slope is approximately sixty degrees and there is no footing whatever on it.  Even more worrisome is the clear evidence of erosion on the slope to the point where it is undermining our chain-link fence in the upper right hand corner of this photo.  We have to keep enough shrubbery to stop the erosion, or our fence and possibly our whole back yard may slide down into the canyon.  The city expects homeowners to maintain a defensible space of 100 feet from the house, but if you go that distance from our house, you're over the edge and down the slope.

Besides the boxwood hedge, another plant helping to slow down the erosion process is the native California Lemonadeberry tree (Rhus integrifolia)  growing up from the edge of the canyon.  These trees act as spark catchers during wildfire and may actually slow down the progress of a fire by stopping wind driven sparks from spreading the fire into new areas.  We plan to take off some of the branches that hang over the boxwood hedge below it, but we don't plan to cut the whole thing down because we need its protection against erosion.  One of the main features of the Lemonadeberry is its value in preventing erosion on slopes and cliffs.

Another item that annoys us is the fact that the city has not met its responsibility to maintain the canyon.  When Cindy and her sister Mary went down into the canyon last February, they found that the lower end of the canyon is completely impassable because of the dead branches, logs and other dead or overgrown plant material.  Even where they could get footing, the vegetation was too thick to proceed.  All that dead or overgrown plant material is just so much more tinder for wildfires.  We'll do our part, and we don't have a problem with that, but the city needs to meet its responsibilities, too.

More Rain--But No Fires This Year

I woke up to the sound of rain water gurgling off the roof and into the new drainage system yesterday morning.

We got about 15 hundredths of an inch according to the Union Trib, although it seemed like more to me.  That brings us up to over two inches since July 1st.  It's very unusual to have this much rain at this time of year, but it's very welcome; because of the rainfall, we haven't had to worry about wild fire danger this year.

October is usually a very dangerous month for fire in Southern California.  Without rain, the brush is usually so dry at this time of year that it doesn't take much to get a fire started.  When the Santa Ana winds start to blow hot, dry air in from the desert, the wind can push a fire at an incredible pace.  It takes on a life of its own, like the Fiendfyre spell in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

We used to think that we were relatively safe from them because we're surrounded by freeways.  The vast oceans of cement would keep the fires contained, so we thought.  We continued to think that way until the Cedar fire in October 2003, when we saw that fire leap across Interstate 15 and continue to race toward the ocean.  Tumbleweeds on one side of the freeway catch fire and blow across the road to set numerous fires on the other side.  That's when we brought the cat carriers up from the basement and stacked them up in the dining room, preparing to evacuate quickly if we had to do so.

Canyon Fire October 2007

Four years later, just two weeks before the major Witch Creek fire in October 2007, we had or own mini fire in the canyon behind our house.  Cindy had been to a class on wildfire that day and was telling a visiting friend about it, when she smelled smoke.  Fortunately, we discovered it before it got out of hand--there was no wind that day--and the fire department arrived promptly and got it out.

Bravo, San Diego Fire Department!

Anyway, it scared the bejazus out of us.  We've been very careful ever since about trying to keep a defensible fire space around the house, particularly in the back because, although it was across the canyon from us, with a bit of wind it could have gone anywhere in nothing flat.  So we're very happy about the rain this October.

Making Sure It's Out