Berkeley City Council Special Meeting on EMBER Wildfire Resilience – February 11, 2025
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Berkeley City Council Special Meeting on EMBER Wildfire Resilience – February 11, 2025
This special meeting of the Berkeley City Council was held on Tuesday, February 11, 2025, at 4:00 PM in the School District Board Room. The council heard a comprehensive presentation from the Berkeley Fire Department and other city staff on the EMBER (Effective Mitigations for Berkeley’s Ember Resilience) initiative, a package of four proposals aimed at reducing catastrophic wildfire risk. The meeting included extensive public comment, council deliberation, and a unanimous vote to advance the proposals.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Former Vice Mayor Susan Wengraf spoke in strong support of the EMBER package, urging the council to take action based on science and best practices.
- Greg Murphy (Disaster Fire and Safety Commission vice chair, speaking as resident) supported the initiative, noting his own home hardening efforts.
- Todd Darling (Disaster and Fire Safety Commission, speaking personally) supported zone zero regulations and urged citywide consideration.
- Henry DeNaro (President, Berkeley Fire Safe Council) offered longer-term recommendations including upgraded vegetation enforcement, systematic eucalyptus removal, home hardening via property tax credits, and a five-year strategic plan. He also accepted Mayor Ishii’s proposal to partner on defensible space work for low-income, elderly, and disabled residents.
- Michael Downs (resident of proposed zone) expressed concern about cost burden on homeowners and potential impacts on property values and insurability.
- Dan Lieberman (resident) questioned the focus on home hardening, citing water supply issues in LA and noting that some measures may conflict with historic home preservation.
- Jim Hanson (landscape architect) urged flexibility in zone zero regulations, referencing the Board of Forestry’s expert panel suggestions for occasional plants within five feet if surrounded by rocks.
- Doug Kidder (Firewise community co-founder) supported the initiative, noting the need for collective action.
- Cheryl Drinkwater (architect and Diablo Fire Safe Council president) supported the initiative, emphasizing home hardening and regular maintenance.
- Ruth Aaron Kranz (resident, Firewise certified) supported regulation and enforcement.
- Fern Wild Truth (ecology PhD candidate) praised the science-informed plan and urged coordination with UC Berkeley facilities management.
- Isabel Gaston (resident) urged support, comparing the science to following Fauci during COVID, and noted she had removed camellias from zone zero.
- Yen Track (resident) strongly supported the proposal, stating it will save his neighborhood.
- Maria (former volunteer) supported the plan, emphasizing community action and concerns about density and evacuation for elders/disabled.
- Michelle Sweeney (former Tahoe resident) lauded the presentation, asked for a five-year strategic plan and assistance for those in need, and stressed coordination with Oakland and UC Berkeley.
- Elizabeth Watson (former Sonoma County councilmember) supported the plan and offered lessons from Sonoma, including landscaping competitions, insurance industry engagement, and neighbor engagement.
- A speaker who experienced the 2017 Tubbs fire expressed gratitude for the proposal.
- Sybil Hatch (resident) strongly supported all proposals, particularly the Safe Passages program, and urged expanded red curbs on key corridors.
- Rachel Bradley (resident) stressed the need for serious parking restrictions on narrow roads and reopening Wildcat Canyon Road between Inspiration Point and Camino Pablo.
- Chris Cullander (resident) fully supported the EMBER proposal and is implementing zone zero.
- Charles Scalthorne (structural engineer, professor) supported the proposal, but urged the city to work with EBMUD to install firefighting water tanks/cisterns at the Summit Reservoir site.
- Candace Hyde Wang (League of Women Voters) noted that wildfire danger extends to the whole city, including the Berkeley Marina, and emphasized the need for refuge locations.
- Lori Volan (resident of Wildcat Canyon) expressed willingness to comply but noted impossibility due to eucalyptus debris from adjacent land; she also urged promoting preemptive evacuation as a community service.
- Nancy Rader (resident) strongly supported a focus on zone three and four for broad compliance, and called for a detailed five-year plan and budget for Measure FF funds.
- Margot Smith (resident) urged careful consideration of evacuation routes, citing bicycle infrastructure that may impede car flow.
- Michael Goldhaber (resident) questioned coordination with Tilden Park and noted difficulties for elderly evacuees in finding shelter.
- Jeff Bloomfield (resident) urged limiting or banning new ADU permits in fire zones.
- George Porter (Commission on Aging) highlighted the challenges for elderly residents with mobility issues during evacuation.
- Former Mayor Shirley Dean urged revisiting the concept of carrying capacity of the land and involving a panel of commissioners to work on details.
- Umway (resident) criticized the focus on hills, noting flatlands also have wildfire risk from jet fuel lines and infill construction.
- Debbie Sanderson (resident) praised the presentation and fully supported the recommendations.
- Richard Ilgin (former senior deputy city attorney) noted that many residents did not receive evacuation notices, urged identification of evacuation routes, designation of one-way streets, and declaration of eucalyptus trees as a public nuisance.
Discussion Items
- Item 1a: Fire Code Amendments – Presentation by Fire Chief David Sprague, retired Chief Dave Winnaker, and OES Director Sarah Lana. The proposal includes creating a new Fire Zone 4 (areas east of Grizzly Peak Blvd to Wildcat Canyon Rd., and Panoramic Hill), adopting Zone Zero (removal of all combustible material within 5 feet of structures), and repealing/re-enacting the fire code to include ember-resistant best practices. Staff also proposed researching the Quantifying the Negative (QTN) approach to measure the economic value of the EMBER initiative.
- Item 1b: Building Code Amendments – Staff plan to return to council by end of 2025 with a resolution adopting triannual amendments to the 2025 California Building Standards for Fire Zones 3 and 4. Proposed amendments include requiring Class A roofs during partial replacement, replacing combustible siding with Chapter 7A compliant materials, installing metal gutters and screens, replacing combustible decks and fences, and requiring 6 inches vertical separation from ground to siding. Staff will investigate federal, state, or municipal incentives and loans.
- Item 1c: Leave Early and Fire Department Staffing – Staff proposed evaluating thresholds for Extreme Fire Weather designation and NOAA’s Particularly Dangerous Situation (PDS) designation, and returning to council by May 2025. Staff also sought council affirmation of four staffing recommendations from the Fire Department Standards of Coverage study (Recommendations 1, 5, 6, and 10).
- Item 1d: Safe Passages Program – Referral from Councilmember Blackaby (co-sponsored by Humbert and O’Keefe) to direct Public Works, Police, and Fire to collaboratively implement a Safe Passages Program for EMBER Phase 1 and 2, focusing on no-parking zones and enforcement during extreme fire weather. Report back by May 2025.
Key Outcomes
- Council unanimously (8-0, with Councilmember Kesarwani absent and Councilmember Bartlett absent at start but later present) voted to:
- Refer Items 1a, 1b, and 1c back to staff to conduct additional community outreach, incorporate feedback from the public and council, refine proposals, and prepare final versions for council consideration in March 2025.
- Adopt Item 1d (Safe Passages Program) immediately, directing the City Manager to implement the program and report back by the second week of May 2025.
- Councilmembers expressed strong support for the EMBER initiative, with several emphasizing the need for financial assistance for homeowners, coordination with regional partners (UC Berkeley, Oakland, EBRPD), and a comprehensive evacuation plan that includes vulnerable populations. Councilmember Bartlett suggested exploring a special assessment district or citywide bond for home hardening. Councilmember Tregub requested an integrated timeline, funding sources, and opportunities to leverage state/federal programs. Councilmember Humbert asked for clarity on performance-based standards and a chart of code applicability by zone. The city manager noted that unfunded staffing recommendations would be considered during the upcoming budget process.
Meeting Transcript
Recording in progress. Uh hold on one second. Um test. And hello. Okay. I think we're gonna get started, folks. If you could please take your seats. All right. Don't have the agenda in front of me. But all right. I'm gonna call this special meeting to order. It is Tuesday, February 11th, and I would like to start with the role, please. Okay. Councilmember Kisserwani is currently absent. Taplin present. Bartlett is currently absent. Tregob present. Uh O'Keefe. Present. Lackaby. Here. Luna Para. Here. Umbert. Present. And Mayor Ishi. Here. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Uh, well, this is a special meeting, so I'm going to pass it over to Chief Sprague. Thank you very much. Good evening, Mayor, Council, and residents. The events of last month in LA were heartbreaking. Everyone in the Bay Area, fire service wanted to be down there helping. Most of us were not able to. And so instead, we spent the last month working with many stakeholders throughout the community to prepare for tonight's presentation. The fires in LA changed the course of thousands of lives, creating acute and chronic health problems, and a leaving in their wake a uh environmental and financial disaster. But these events were predictable, as were the fires in Paradise, Santa Rosa, La Haina, and many others. Not just predictable, but in many cases, these fires have occurred in similar areas before. Fires burn along predictable and known topographical features driven by the ripe mix of fuel and weather conditions. Fire is a natural and recurring part of the California landscape. And like many forces of nature. Sorry. Fire ran through this land on a recurring cycle every five to ten years for millennia before PG ⁇ E strung transmission lines through our through our wildland areas and before we moved into fire prone areas and filled it with hazardous vegetation. We can, however, learn to live with fire by implementing well-understood, scientifically supported defensible space and home hardening measures through which we create a fire adapted community. These steps will dramatically reduce the potential for loss of property and loss of life. While there will continue to be an important place for fire suppression, our efforts to remove fire from the landscape through an industrialized response have failed. And it will take an all-hands approach to transition our community to being more fire safe. In the photo you see here, you can see uh a tree that had experienced fire about every 10 years, ending around the turn of the century, at which point we uh systematically excluded fire from the landscape.
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