Friends of the Library
The Friends of the Library are having a book sale on Saturday, September 8, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. All proceeds will benefit the Library.
Create your Defensible Space Zone!
Since early June, Ross Valley Fire Department personnel have been out in the neighborhoods reminding residents of the requirement for property owners to create defensible space around their homes.
“Defensible Space” area should be a minimum of 100 feet of clearance around your home (or up to your property line). The Defensible Space area is the area where you’ve modified the landscaping to give your house the best chance to survive on its own – greatly improving the odds for firefighters who are defending your neighborhood. If your home is on a slope or subject to high winds, extend the distance of this zone to the area that is recommended for your property. You can request a “Defensible Space” inspection by calling Ross Valley Fire at 258-4686, or visit www.rossvalleyfire.org to schedule an appointment.
You can reduce your fire risk by completing the following:
- Remove – dead and dying grass, shrubs and trees
- Reduce – the density of vegetation (fuel) and ladder fuels, those fuels extending from the ground to the tree canopies.
- Replace – hazardous vegetation with fire resistive, irrigated landscape vegetation including lawn, or other low growing groundcovers and flowering plants.
It’s the “little things” that will endanger your home. Just a small ember landing on a little pile of flammable material may ignite and quickly spread to your home. The Fire Department suggests spending a morning searching out and getting rid of those flammable little things outside and your home will be much safer. Following are a few of the items you should take a look at:
- Keep your rain gutters and roof clean of all flammable material.
- Get rid of dry grass, brush and other flammable materials around your home – and don’t forget leaves, pine needles, and bark walkways. Replace with well maintained (watered) landscape vegetation, green lawn and landscape rocks.
- Clear all flammable materials from your deck. This includes brooms, stacked wood, and easily ignitable patio furniture. Also, enclose or board up the area under your deck to keep it from becoming a fuel bed for hot embers.
- Move wood piles and garbage cans away from your home. Keep wood piles away from the home a distance of two times the height of the pile – more if space allows.
- Use fine mesh metal screen (1/4” or less) to cover eaves, roof and foundation vents to prevent windblown embers from entering.
- Inspect and clean your chimney every year. Trim away branches within 10 feet of the opening of the chimney. Install a spark arrester with ½” or smaller screen.
You can also visit the Fire Safe Marin website – www.firesafemarin.org – for more detailed information on clearing around your property. For additional information on fire safety, visit www.rossvalleyfire.org, and click on the Prevention tab.
If you have specific questions or would like to schedule an appointment for an inspection, please call Ross Valley Fire at 258-4686.
Earthquake Retrofits
The San Anselmo Town Council wants to encourage property owners to perform earthquake retrofit work on their homes.
There are a lot of good reasons to ensure that your home is prepared to withstand a major earthquake. Retrofitting your home will reduce your chances of injury and death in an earthquake, as retrofitted structures stand up to the shaking much better. And, it is a lot cheaper to retrofit a house than it is to repair it after an earthquake.
In order to facilitate the retrofit process, the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the California Building Officials (CALBO) have developed pre-engineered details for homeowners to use to brace their homes from the forces induced by earthquakes.
These standard plan sets consist of two sheets. The first sheet consists of instructions on how to brace your home. The second sheet is used to draw a plan of your house and to show which details on the two sheets you wish to use to brace different portions of your house.
An engineer isn’t needed to draw these plans but some minimal knowledge in drawing is. The bracing applied would provide a major improvement in reducing the damages from an earthquake.
A Building Permit is needed before construction starts. Three sets of the drawings need to be submitted, along with a permit application to the Town.
Homeowners wishing to utilize the pre-engineered designs for earthquake bracing of their homes may obtain them at the CALBO web site (http://www.calbo.org/build_dept/resources/StandardPS.htm) The drawings need to be 24”x 36” in size.
Please note that for more complicated projects or if you desire an increased degree of protection, an engineer should be retained to evaluate your particular property.
For more information, call the Planning and Building Department at 258-1616.
San Anselmo News, published weekly on Fridays, is available at the San Anselmo Town Hall, Library, on the Public Notice Bulletin Board. It is also available on the Town’s website, www.townofsananselmo.org, and by email subscription.
