- [Tre] Tonight on "Bay Area Bountiful," we'll visit a rebuilt Santa Rosa Winery that was destroyed by the 2017 Tubbs Fire.

We'll discover how some wildfire mitigation may actually damage Sonoma County communities.

We'll speak with three Bay Area fire chiefs, as they advise us on fire preparedness practices.

We'll see how the Sonoma County Tenants Union is helping tenants prepare for smoke and poor air quality.

And we'll learn how the San Jose Fire Department and South Bay residents are working towards releasing emergency information in multiple languages.

"Preparing for Fire" is coming up next on "Bay Area Bountiful."

- [Announcer 1] "Bay Area Bountiful" is about agriculture.

(gentle music) It's about feeding us.

It's about land, and water.

It's about the health of our planet.

It's about stories that matter.

(bright upbeat music) "Bay Area Bountiful," cultivate, celebrate, connect.

- [Announcer 2] "Bay Area Bountiful" is made possible in part by Rocky the free range chicken, and Rosie, the original organic chicken.

The Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation, and Open Space district, Made Local Magazine, and Sonoma County Go Local, and through the generous support of Sonoma Water.

(bright upbeat music) - [Tre] In the fall of 2017, Northern California experienced the most destructive and deadly wildfire the state has seen since the 1991 tunnel fire in Alameda County.

The Tubbs Fire swept through the Northeastern countryside of Sonoma County and destroyed residential areas like Fountain Grove and Coffey Park.

Soon, the fire came to the hills of Paradise Ridge Winery and left nothing in its path, but a small building and a large sculpture depicting one word.

- We didn't know the fire, what kind of damage we had until the following day.

And that's when, you know, we found out about the Hospitality Center burning, the wine-making facility and three homes, and we had tenants in those homes.

We did have one team member that did lose their house.

And when we told my dad what had happened after we confirm that things were gone, he just basically said, we're gonna rebuild.

And that's what we did.

(gentle music) When my dad was pursuing my mom, they visited all sculpture parks, and my dad thought it'd be nice if he could use the land to have some large-scale sculptures here on the property.

So, almost the first year that the winery opened, we had a show here with sculptures, and we've been showing here ever since.

He had curated everything, and then we partnered with a family called The Voigts, and they have a connection with the BlackRock Arts Foundation.

And they ended up bringing in this big love sculpture that had been at burning man, and we ended up buying it.

What I call the love meadow, which is a meadow where the love sculpture is, there's about three or four other pieces from Burning Man that are there, and now we've started a whole other area on our property.

And there's other pieces of Burning Man over there, 'cause it's something that, you know, it's kinda giving back, and art sometimes don't get a lot of support.

So, we're here to support large scale sculptures and artists.

(gentle music continues) For us, the rebuild was kind of a grind.

We opened in December of 2019, and the pandemic came in March of '20 so we had to close.

So in essence, we haven't fully been open since... Well, since the fire.

You know, we use a lot less wood when we rebuilt.

Our decks are not made of wood, they're made of like a tile that looks like wood.

We have done a lot more to, with the grazing and keeping the grasses low.

I think one of the reasons we didn't lose our vineyards, was that grass underneath our vines was minimal.

We're bringing grazing back to our property, sheep, and we still have to do a lot of weed whacking.

We have our own fire hydrant.

We've got a well; we have about a 50,000 gallon tank, we got fire hoses.

And I think our communication with the staff, the family, it all seems to be better, ready, more ready for an emergency situation.

But fires right now are kind of something that's here to stay a little bit.

With smoke or fires, whether they happen here or somewhere close, our community is affected.

I think we'll get a dialed in.

I think PG&E will get it dialed in.

I think our firefighters, and the Cal fire, they're dialing it in.

I think there's better communication.

I'm praying, and I kinda feel confident that what we've seen here, what we saw in Paradise, California, that that's not gonna happen again.

(bright upbeat music) After four long years Paradise Ridge Winery has reopened with a new, fire-hardened hospitality center - [Tre] The 2017 Tubbs Fire, marked the beginning of a consistent fire season and ignited a sense of urgency for California to stay on top of fire hazards.

But not all preventative efforts are for the best.

Residents of the Mill Creek area west of Healdsburg are still recovering from the 2020 Walbridge fire and tensions have risen around PG&E's recent attempts at fire prevention.

- When I bought the property, I said I wasn't buying the property, I was caretaking it.

Residents of the Mill Creek area west of Healdsburg are still rec where we'd have, you know, get together picnics, and everybody knew everybody.

And if you had children, the kids all went to school together, but that's gone.

(bright upbeat music continues) We've had ongoing problems with PG&E and other companies that have tried to tell us that they are protecting us.

And instead, what they've gone through, is they have cut trees almost at random, the first groups.

'Cause there've been so many like five, six, seven different groups, they don't know who's working for whom.

But now there's a whole new program, and that's why we're here, is the trees are now being marked with two dots, yellow dots and yellow ribbons to be cut.

We had to find...

I had to find out through a logger what the yellow dot meant.

Through a logger.

None of us were notified what these yellow dots were.

Why did I find out through a logger?

- PG&E always been good.

They call, they made appointments, come out, made the access arrangements, gone on the property, Don't they?

- [Resident] Yeah.

- This is not happening now.

We had so many people.

And like another person indicated, they say they're working for PG&E.

But apparently, from what I understand here now, they're not.

That's a big concern.

- Yeah.

There's another program that she said isn't PG&E.

They're going into inaccessible areas with big trees, and they cut 'em down.

And then, the helicopter takes out the big butt, and puts it in one place, and then the whole top of the tree, they fly over our trailers and they dumped the rest up there.

That's what the meeting is about.

Who's going to clean up behind PG&E and all these other contractors?

'Cause these are all like dead matchsticks.

Unless we can go in and drop all the dead trees, well, we can't afford to do that.

And PG&E did some, and then they just left everything.

The problem is on the larger trees that they dropped, if it's less than a full length, the loggers can't take it.

So, you saw all those piles coming up, those are going to be sent up as trash, as garbage.

All those trees are short, you know, some of 'em are that big around.

Why can't it at least be recycled?

- [Narrator] As so many of us are learning, rebuilding, and finding a new way to live in Sonoma County, is what we can expect for the foreseeable future.

- My daughter was saying, we haven't even been able to grieve for this.

That's why I put the little, (sighs) the redwood hair on there.

I have too many memories, I could not rebuild here.

So, I have like 47 acres.

There's three and a half here and the rest is up there.

That area up there, has probably the nicest view in the county.

Now, (chuckles) we're rebuilding in a spot on the top of the hill, where everything was burned around it.

We're clearing if possible, at least 200 feet around it, so that with it being on the top of a ridge, that the fire, there's nothing for the fire to come up and burn the house.

I have a Go bag, and I have the cat box and the dog.

And then also, we got a truck big enough so where she could pull out the trailers and leave 'em down the road and come back at the other one.

So, at least we won't leave, you know, we won't lose them if we have a heads up.

So, we're really concentrating on making that house.

(sighs) We have decided that, that will be a whole new life in this new world, because this is completely a new world.

- [Tre] PG&E's attempts at wildfire mitigation, have shown themselves to be a mixed bag.

But in addition to institutional efforts, California residents can take prevention measures in and around their homes, to stay prepared for the next potential fire event.

- [Resident] In the recent years, Cal Fire has stopped announcing when fire season begins and ends.

We see a drop-off in the number of incidents when the rainy season starts, but there's no declared fire season anymore.

- [Tre] We visited the Richmond Fire Department and spoke with three Bay Area Cal Fire chiefs to learn how to prepare ourselves, our homes, and our communities during the height of the now year-round California fires season.

- As Californians, we're all intimately aware of the drought situation that we're currently in, which is posing a challenge for us in the fire service.

This year, especially is important for us and our communities to be prepared for wildfire, doing their defensible space, having their evacuation plan, and their Go Bag and everything ready.

- Everybody's gonna have a different need for their Go Bags, so it's really important to plan ahead.

The National Fire Protection Association or nfpa.org has a drop-down list, actually a checklist and a sheet that you can check off the things you might need.

- And then, it's just as a renter, you wanna ensure you have renter's insurance.

And then also, just ensuring the fire life safety items are in your homes, your smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, that you have a fire extinguisher.

And more importantly, you know how to use that fire extinguisher.

Things of that nature are just in general things that everyone should have in their homes.

- Really important that you understand the sound of your smoke detectors, the sound of your carbon monoxide detector, and be able to tell what those differences are, because the sounds will be different and distinct.

So, if you can test those when your children are around, a lot of people don't do it because their children might be sensitive to the sound, but that's the best time to find out if they're sensitive or if they freeze up.

- [Chief] And then, just doing your due diligence on the interior and exterior of your home, ensuring that you don't have other fire hazards kind of inside as well as outside.

- One thing that I've noted while doing my inspections, is that the storage is gonna be limited for an apartment.

They don't either have a car port or they don't even have storage closets, so they typically will try to use the balcony as a portion of their storage.

But it's really important that they keep the balconies and all the exit pathways clear so they can get out.

- In addition to all of that, is having, if you're landscaping, getting water tolerant type of vegetation that you're planting around your home, that creates that defensible space.

You're trying to create a break so that the fire doesn't propagate from one area to your home.

So, that's what the defensible space concept is all about.

- There's a lot of different things you don't wanna learn in the middle of an emergency.

You don't necessarily need to wait to get notified for evacuation.

If you're ready and you know the fire is in that general area, you can actually do us a favor, so to speak, by getting out 'cause that's one less vehicle on the road.

- [Tre] Some valuable websites to reference when preparing for a wildfire, include the National Fire Protection Association nfpa.org, ready.org, fire.ca.gov, and the Cal Fire app at readyforwildfire.org.

- Signing up for those alerts now, is the best way to be informed in an event.

So, what you wanna do, is get signed up for your local notification, Office of Emergency Services or fire department, or even your local city to find out, in the event of an emergency, where that evacuation center will be, or your cooling center.

Each local area is a little bit different as well.

For example, in the city of Petaluma, we do have buses that are able to help out our community that has special needs.

And I would encourage anyone who has any sort of special needs to reach out to your local fire department, emergency services office, and figure out what services that they do provide.

- Cal Fire has an app that everyone should have on their smartphone and device that gives them fire map information, it gives them defensible space information, fire incidents, fire news.

It has a lot of great information.

Again, being prepared prior an incident happening, is giving you a better probability of a good outcome, as opposed to a negative one.

(bright upbeat music) - [Tre] There are many practical steps homeowners can take to prepare their homes for wildfire.

But there are still ways that renters fall through the cracks in fire preparedness outreach.

The Sonoma County Tenants Union has been trying to fill this gap by raising mutual aid funds to provide low income tenants with air purifiers ahead of fire season.

- Today, we are doing actually several things, kind of all wrapped up into one, nice, little phone banking session.

We are reaching out to people who have called us in the past who we haven't really connected with.

We are trying to actually create membership by having people sign up to pay dues.

We're doing a dues drive right now so we can actually have everybody who hasn't been paying dues over the last year, 'cause we waived those dues 'cause of COVID, having all of those folks actually start paying monthly dues, which is super important.

Because the third thing we're doing is preparing for fire season here in Sonoma County.

- We know that air quality is something that's really affects all of us, whether the fire's like really close to us, or, you know, we were really affected by the Paradise fires and air quality could be a huge issue for many months on end.

But there's no public service campaigns about this, no public health campaigns to actually get people what they need to make their indoor air quality clean.

And so, when we're thinking about tenants, the landlord is required to provide things like smoke detectors, or, you know, doors that lock.

Certain things that are essential for the habitability of your home.

But there's no requirement that they provide air purifiers when the smoke outside is toxic.

And we know that smoke is extremely harmful to our health.

And especially with young children, it can actually alter the DNA in young children, and this can have lifelong consequences.

But yet nobody's being educated about air purifiers indoors, and no public health, or emergency preparedness, or emergency disaster entity in our county is actually like going out and giving these resources to people, let alone educating them on the importance of it.

So, we take care of our members, and so we're doing this for tenants in Sonoma County.

(gentle music) Yeah.

And are you able or interested in contributing to our fire assistance fund?

- The other piece that we were asking you about today is we're just checking in around fire preparedness.

A lot of tenants, you know, we're unfortunately entering Sonoma County's fire season, and we're just checking in to see if tenants are in need of things like air purifiers, masks.

- I had some really great interactions with folks on calls.

I think some of the people I talked to, were people who we talked to on the hotline like a year ago.

And som they appreciate it, just the followup and being checked in on, they know from their own experiences, how important air quality is.

And we're eager to give back to the community and support others in being able to live comfortably at home.

So, yeah, we made a couple of hundred dollars today, and it was great.

My name is Rachel and I'm calling from the Sonoma County Tenants Union.

I was talking to the manager there about placing a bulk order for air purifiers?

Sebastopol Hardware was really great and they offered us a bulk discount on the air purifier.

So, we're ordering them at cost, and we really appreciate them for supporting us with this effort.

And we ordered 30 that are arriving this week.

And then we hope to be able to order more once more money comes into our fundraiser.

- So, our primary mandate has always been to stop evictions to, keep people in their home.

But it is still really essential that we look after the health and wellbeing of tenants.

And fire season is basically a vast threat to people's wellbeing.

And not just in the way that you might think, which is evacuations, or losing your home, or losing your possessions, but just living in the county when it's under like, almost like fire lockdown, is how I like to think about it, is taxing on people's lungs, on people's minds in a lot of different ways, especially if you're at risk or already vulnerable in some sort of way.

And so, preparing mutual aid, preparing fire mutual aid is really essential.

- When we talk with people on the hotline about their rights as tenants, habitability is one of the core components of tenants rights.

It's like you have the right to live in a place that's free of mold, of leaks, of infestations, asbestos, things like that.

And we have become so accustomed to smoke.

We think that, we believe it's a basic human right to live in a place where your indoor air quality is breathable and it's not gonna risk your health.

And so, this is a fundamental habitability issue as well as a tenants rights issue.

- [Tre] Renters in Sonoma County are not the only community experiencing gaps in the system of emergency preparedness.

In San Jose, there's a significant need for more multilingual emergency preparedness outreach.

Some residents have taken it upon themselves to distribute information in their languages so that all communities are prepared when a crisis arises.

In a city of almost 1 million people of diverse backgrounds, the San Jose Fire Department is tasked with protecting an incredibly diverse population.

It must also be prepared to deal with a wide variety of emergencies.

- Our fires are getting worse.

There just seems to be more global emergencies going on.

And so, if we're more prepared, I think as a whole, and as a fire department, it'll just make our job a little bit easier.

Current trainees began with a week long training.

Because of the wild land California fires, we've been getting sent out to help Cal Fire in a mutual aid situation.

So, it's really important that they get the foundation for fighting these grass fires because they're extremely dangerous.

We work with them to get them up to speed and be prepared.

And the last thing we wanna do, is see any of our people that live in our community affected by the emergencies.

And if we can help them any way we can and be preventative, then that is one of our many responsibilities that we can do to here as firefighters.

- [Tre] One way the department hopes to prepare non-English speaking residents for emergencies, is through multi-lingual online videos.

(firefighter speaking in foreign language) - (speaking in foreign language) I was proud and honored to represent the community and trusted by the fire department enabled to get the information across, to prepare not only for wild land emergency, but also an earthquake, or flood, or any other type of emergency.

So, in multi-languages, people can check out emergency services within the San Jose, by going to SJFD.org.

- [Tre] Although checking a website is second nature for many, it is not easy for everyone.

In east side San Jose, neighbors along with nonprofit SOMOS Mayfair and the Si Se Puede Collective, came up with a way to reach the entire community in a crisis.

- There are many people, they don't know what to do.

Who have no access to internet.

I don't know how to work in the computer.

I don't know, and I don't know if I do this, probably, I'll gonna mess up everything.

So, we used to live in fear because we are immigrant, no document.

So, that's why we don't know what to do, if we don't have someone who speak our language.

Our neighborhood is almost, all of them immigrant, but they need help.

- [Tre] In 2017, when a major flood impacted this area, emergency outreach was exposed as lacking.

- I never hear any new plan they have.

The flood happen, that's it.

I never hear anything about it.

We have resources in this city, but for us, sometime it's not possible to get it.

First of all, we're trying to organize people to know how to look for help.

When COVID-19 start, nobody is gonna come here.

We had to do it, because we are part of it, but we'll do it.

The county of Santa Clara Public Health has give us some training to do the job we are doing now.

We put a significant name: East San Jose Guerreras Contra COVID.

Guerreras means Warrior Against COVID, and we started going door by door, asking people what do they need?

They can trust me because I'm your neighbor, I'm like you.

- [Tre] The Guerraras show that when traditional support is absent, communities themselves can leverage their own strengths, a model response for any emergency.

- Hello!

Hello!

I'm so happy to be part of this emergency people who is in the front line.

We are making sure nobody is left behind.

We know what is affecting us, who is gonna know more?

Us.

Is us, we live here.

(fire truck engine revving) - From my experience the outreach is there but it's not enough.

The community out there is wanting more outreach, more representation for different ethnic groups.

Beside the written information, the fire department need more into community events and speak in their native tongues if you will.

- Community outreach is always really important.

We definitely have some room to grow.

So we're on the right track, and we're gonna continue to do our best and get our information out to everybody.

- For crisis like this, we are the community, I am the community.

If their sources are not for me, they are not for the community.

- San Jose has 59 mobile home parks.

The San Jose Fire Department had partnership with the red cross to install smoke detectors and carbon monoxide sensor for free.

There was 50% of Vietnamese or more live in those mobile home parks.

We have confirmed there's two families that have been saved by this program.

That is something our department can be extremely proud of.

(bright upbeat music)