Woodside Fire urges homeowners to harden homes, expand defensible space and use new chipping reservations and alert apps

Woodside Fire Marshal Kim Giuliaci told residents at a Woodside Town Council workshop on Oct. 11 that homeowners must combine home hardening and defensible-space work, sign up for the district’s chipping program and use county and state alert systems to improve chances of surviving a wildfire.

The presentation, delivered to local residents and followed by a session from John Middleman, chair of the town’s emergency committee, laid out recent research on causes of structure loss in wildfires and specific steps the Woodside Fire Protection District and homeowners are taking — and can take — to reduce risk.

Giuliaci said homes burn for three basic reasons — fuel, ignition and weather — and that mitigation focuses on removing or interrupting those pathways. She cited studies by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) showing that measures such as tempered windows, one-eighth-inch vent screens, noncombustible materials near the first 6 inches of a structure and cleared “Zone 0” vegetation often determine whether neighboring houses survive. “There’s no amount of water that is going to put out a fire. Fire is gonna do what it needs to do,” Giuliaci said.

Woodside Fire has several ongoing programs residents were urged to use: a reservation-based chipping program (the district asks homeowners to reserve a pickup to improve routing and to capture cubic-yard chipping data), annual home assessments (about 700–800 completed so far, Giuliaci said), and outreach including home-hardening workshops and a monthly safety newsletter. The chipping reservation change is intended to produce more accurate data for Firewise community reporting and state-level reporting, Giuliaci said.

Giuliaci described how research and past fires (she cited analyses of the 1961 Bel Air conflagration, the 2017 Tubbs/Coffee Park events and the 2018 Camp Fire) point to three damage pathways: direct flame contact, ember intrusion and radiant heat. She said IBHS and other studies show radiant heat accounted for the majority of damage in some events and that spacing between structures matters: losses drop materially as distance increases and are substantially lower at about 30–40 feet of separation.

The fire marshal reviewed common vulnerability examples from post‑fire studies — combustible fences and privacy hedges that act as “candles” or wicks, clogged gutters and debris on roofs, vent openings larger than one-eighth inch, wooden garage penetrations and combustible materials stored in attics and garages — and recommended homeowners begin mitigation at the house and work outward. She also encouraged homeowners to consider the costs shown in some studies: modest average increases for ignition‑resistant construction in many cases and larger “optimum” packages she cited (Giuliaci stated figures from studies as approximate and referred residents to the district’s posted resources for details).

Giuliaci discussed enforcement and real-estate transfers: she said the town’s ordinance requires defensible-space compliance for properties sold in the town; when buyer and seller enter escrow they decide who pays for compliance work and typically have 12 months after escrow to meet the ordinance requirements. She advised homeowners that inspectors use “progress” as a basis for enforcement timetables.

Giuliaci also described the district’s operational limits: Woodside Fire has a small local engine fleet and relies on mutual aid from Redwood City and Menlo Park for trucks and battalion chiefs; in a multi‑structure wildfire the district’s resources can be tapped out quickly. She encouraged residents to prepare so their homes can survive without firefighters present.

Middleman described notification tools and community organization steps residents should take. He reviewed federal and county alerting systems and local apps: IPAWS (FEMA’s integrated public alert system), SMC Alert (San Mateo County’s opt-in message service), Genesis Protect (formerly Zonehaven-style zone tools), WatchDuty (real-time mapping of fire direction and response), and MyShake (California earthquake early‑warning app). “IPAWS will broadcast alerts over phones and the airwaves; SMC Alert is the primary way you’ll get evacuation instructions,” Middleman said.

Middleman and Giuliaci both urged neighborhood-level organizing: Firewise community participation, neighborhood “hub” contacts to match needs and resources during a disaster, and WPV CERT volunteer training (a CERT training session and radio‑communications course were announced for June 10; residents were directed to the WPV Ready website to sign up). Giuliaci said the district will also contact large private landowners and park managers to request proof of required mitigation work and will continue partnership work with PG&E on vegetation clearance along power lines (Giuliaci noted debris removal by third-party contractors can leave material on private property and that the district is exploring how to help homeowners with that problem).

Residents asked questions about exterior sprinklers, wooden decks and window framing. Giuliaci said the district has no formal regulatory stance on exterior sprinklers but recommended that any system have a dedicated water and power source; she advised enclosing or screening decks to prevent embers from collecting beneath them and checking that window and trim assemblies are well sealed. For tools and more information she referenced Cal Fire’s Ready for Wildfire site, Marin Fire Safe, IBHS resources, and local QR codes and links that the district will post to its website.

The presentation closed with invitations to sign up for the chipping reservation system and e-notifications, to request home assessments, and to participate in Firewise and WPV CERT activities. John Middleman noted that neighborhood organization and early enrollment in alert systems can make evacuation and survivor support more effective.