October 2011
Lake Travis
Economic Impact Report

Officials, residents assess concerns in the aftermath of fire

By Ann Fowler
Oak Hill Gazette
Thursday, May 19, 2011

Elected officials, fire experts and residents continue to sift through the ashes for lessons from last month's wildfire that burned approximately 100 acres of brush in Oak Hill, destroying 11 homes in the Scenic Brook /Windmill Run area.

"It is important for Oak Hill area residents to fully understand the fire threat from 'urban/rural interface.' The Windmill Run fire was just such an example," said County Commissioner Karen Huber representing Precinct 3. "Where neighborhoods are adjacent to undeveloped land, it is critically important to be aware of the potential impacts from wildfire – especially if it starts on the undeveloped land."

Although some have blamed the fire on the owner of the undeveloped land known as West Park PUD, fire officials place the blame squarely on a homeless man who had an illegal campfire on that land on a dry and windy day.

Willie Rhodes, director of the Code Compliance Department, told the Gazette, "A review of our database shows no complaints have been called in regarding this property."

Retired Los Angeles County firefighter Richard Schultz told the Gazette it is common for residents to want to place blame in the aftermath of such a fire. "When it happened in Malibu," recalled Schultz, "it was always against the fire department for slow response times or not putting equipment in the right place or not starting the helicopters soon enough. I cannot remember anyone in my district complaining about his neighbor’s brush clearance after a fire."

Although the Oak Hill fire was small in comparison to those in Los Angeles, it carried a large price tag. Figures provided by Oak Hill Association of Neighborhoods President Sandy Baldridge show costs to the city are more than $200,000. Those figures do not reflect costs undertaken by other responding fire departments or air support.

Huber said, "Often Travis County Emergency Services Districts (ESDs) and the Austin Fire Department work together when fires occur. Multiple units from three Travis County ESDs as well as StarFlight helicopters worked together with AFD to put out the Oak Hill fire. It was indeed, a tremendous example of super efforts by all responders and could very easily, given the conditions, been even worse without this joint effort. Likewise, Travis County and my office continues to work with those involved in the Oak Hill fire and are available to assist in any way that we can."

One post-fire concern involves erosion. Said Scenic Brook area resident Bruce Melton, a civil and environmental engineer: "The risk that this fire was a sterilizing fire, because of its unprecedented extremeness, means that natural recovery will not happen quickly, allowing for greater risks of significant erosion, increased amount of non-native species populating the area and greater environmental impacts because of sediment in the runoff draining into the aquifer. If more erosion happens than less, the prospects of the site ever recovering grow smaller."

Because the site is slated to become a commercial development within the next few years, it is unclear how much vegetation the site needs to recover. Still, residents living downhill from the fire-ravaged hills worry about erosion in case of moderate to severe rain.

Michael Kelly, Stormwater Treatment and Stream Restoration Manager of the Watershed Protection Department, told the Gazette that part of the acreage burned was city property. He said, "The City of Austin maintains a drainage easement on about 5 acres of land in order to operate a flood detention pond that protects Scenic Brook residents from flash floods. The city is limited to erosion control on the area of our easement. To that extent, we have installed controls on the detention pond to prevent eroded soil and ash from flowing out of the pond and downstream into the storm drain system and the creek. In addition, we are applying a layer of hydromulch – a mixture of water, native seed and a soil adherent – to the exposed soil within our drainage easement to reduce soil erosion potential."

According to the Albright Seed Company, which has experience with re-seeding burn areas in southern California, hydromulching is the choice of environmentalists who hope native seed may be buried deep in the soil and will be given a chance to grow.

Kelly said the city has worked with Rudy Belton, owner of the West Park PUD, suggesting the installation of a silt fence between his property and homes on South Brook. The fence was installed last week. Said Kelly, "This should help to minimize the amount of eroded soil that would make its way to these eight backyards."

During the fence installation, Melton noticed the contractor accessing the area through the county-run Windmill Run Park. When Melton pointed out that county permission should be sought, the contractor contacted the county, then ultimately removed the equipment and found an alternate access.

Explained Commissioner Huber: "Though the Oak Hill fire only affected a very small section of Windmill Run Park, the fire department accessed that part of the blaze through the park to contain the fire. The drive area used by the emergency vehicles went right through the middle of the new playgrounds. They also utilized part of the park as a staging area for their equipment to fight other sections of the fire on private property. We certainly support emergency personnel and equipment utilizing any part of that park or other Travis County park whenever needed to help fight fires or respond to other emergencies."

Contractors, however, are a different matter. Huber said, "The contractor contacted Dan Perry, Travis County Parks District Manager, on Thursday and stated that he wanted to use the park for a staging area for work they were going to do on private property affected by the fire – but was not specific as to what that work was. The representative stated that they were using the park to drive through because they saw the tracks left from the fire department and assumed that it was open to the public to drive on and started bringing in equipment. He also stated that they had access to the same property they were to work on from another road that bounds the property, but the park was the easiest way to get in."

Perry told the contractor that the equipment and traffic posed a safety threat to park users because the route was through the playground. Huber said that contractors can be granted access to county parks on a case-by-case basis, but when an alternate access exists, as it did in Oak Hill, permission is usually denied.

John Joseph, who represents Rudy Belton and the West Park PUD, told the Gazette that Belton installed two rows of silt fencing after consulting with environmental contractors and the city of Austin. "He's addressed all issues that have arisen since the fire," said Joseph. That includes removing all homeless camps he could find. "It's an ongoing process," said Joseph. "There may be other things that come up."

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