After a series of drenching rains directly on the heels of the devastating fires, San Diego County has suffered literally not at all from widely predicted landslides and floods.
Why not? Because our natural habitats are fire adapted. Our hillsides are held together with a complicated underground network of living things - micro and macroscopic. Rains after a fire revitalize these soils rather than destabilize them. The ground is enriched and regrowth is rapid.
This is important to us...because the first reaction of those of us affected by fires is to bring in bulldozers and clear around our homes.
A buffer around your home is can be a good thing, BUT if you are on a hillside you can cause irreparable damage and set the stage for destabilization and future landslides.
Cutting local vegetation back and greatly reducing the fuel load is a safer course of action. In so doing, you maintain valuable habitats, reduce your fire risk and help to maintain a stable hillside capable of absorbing valuable water which protecting our watersheds. Much better than eradicating natural vegetation and disturbing delicate underground networks.
Bill Toone
ECOLIFE FOUNDATION
Executive Director
& Conservation Biologist
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