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Contra Costa Fire updates Lafayette on lowered fire incidents, new mapping of fuel breaks
Summary
Contra Costa Fire reported an annexation that expanded its service area, July 4 dispatch statistics, Copter 1 activity, and a new mapping effort to record types and maintenance of fuel breaks to support mitigation and insurance modeling; the district plans a fire-code update presentation to the council soon.
Lafayette — Assistant Chief Chris Bachman of the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District delivered a six‑month operational update to the Lafayette City Council on Oct. 21, highlighting recent call volumes, aerial response data and a new initiative to map fuel-break work countywide.
Key figures and operations: Bachman told the council the district now includes 37 stations after recent annexation activity and more than 670 personnel across the district. He reported Copter 1 — the district’s seasonal helicopter — responded to dozens of incidents and conducted 183 water drops totalling approximately 55,000 gallons during its in‑service window.
Fire activity and outcomes: Bachman said Lafayette’s July 4 period showed no significant local incidents and cited a small number of residential structure fires in 2025 so far; most were minor and did not escalate to multi‑alarm events. He presented a heat map of dispatch activity and said Lafayette showed lower vegetation‑fire increases than other parts of the district.
Fuel‑break mapping: The district is expanding an internal map of completed fuel breaks into a dataset that records the mitigation type (e.g., mastication, limbing and thinning, goat grazing), disposal method (chipping, hauling, lop-and-scatter), acreage and maintenance date. Bachman said the change responds to insurance-industry requests for more granular data to improve catastrophic‑fire modeling; the district intends to publish the mapping in phases and make portions available to the public and insurers in the coming months.
Preparedness and lessons learned: Bachman summarized after‑action reports from recent, large wildfires (including an LA‑area review), and said the district is evaluating evacuation tools and public‑warning systems. He noted the county will engage a third‑party reviewer for community warning systems and said the district will present a fire‑code update to the council in coming meetings to align local ordinances with recently updated California fire-code provisions.
Ending: Councilmembers asked about helipod siting, mapping timelines and grant/legislative funding efforts; Bachman said mapping data for insurance models will be phased and likely public in a few months, and that the district is coordinating with state and federal partners on prevention funding requests.
