Cupertino council hears county Fire Safe Council briefing, adopts Cal Fire hazard-map update in first reading

The Cupertino City Council on June 3 received a presentation from the Santa Clara County Fire Safe Council on countywide wildfire programs and unanimously conducted the first reading of an ordinance to adopt Cal Fire27s updated fire hazard severity zone maps for the city.

The Fire Safe Council representative told the council the nonprofit helps lead large-scale fuel-reduction projects, technology pilots and community wildfire education across Santa Clara County and said the organization is managing two CAL FIRE grants totaling about $15,000,000 to treat roughly 2,000 acres in the Los Gatos Creek watershed. "We're managing about 2,000 acres of wildfire risk reduction in the Los Gatos Creek Watershed," the presenter said during the briefing.

The council later considered a staff report and presented the Cal Fire recommended map, which replaces Cupertino27s 2009 Wildland-Urban Interface map with a three-tier designation (moderate, high, very high). Staff, who recommended adopting Cal Fire's map with one technical change (assigning a single designation per parcel where parcels fell into more than one category), said the new map increases the acreage…