Opinion: Saratoga’s hillside communities should be Firewise

Wow! It’s August already and the heat of the summer has been upon us for a while. I need to start this article off with an apology. In one of my recent articles, I did a lousy job of proofreading, and I incorrectly credited an organization for putting on an event in Saratoga. The Foothill Club has done a fantastic job of putting on Saratoga’s Memorial Day celebration for 99 years. I have praised that event as one of the best events held in Saratoga ever since I attended my first one in 1998 with my young daughters. I apologize for my error and I sincerely thank the Foothill Club for their dedication and commitment to continuing to lead Saratoga’s phenomenal Memorial Day event.

Now, back to the heat of the summer. This time of year brings increasingly dry grasses and brush, creating the fuel for the fires that we see across our country. Wildfire prevention and evacuation planning are among the hottest topics at this time of year.

Many people seek answers from the government and want to know exactly what the government is doing to prevent these wildfires and better protect residents. Saratoga has led community meetings to provide information about available resources, evacuation readiness planning and findings from studies so that we can all be better prepared if a wildfire were to affect our hillsides. However, while information is great, action is better.

Over the past 10 years, Saratoga has allocated funding to clear vegetation from the main evacuation routes, contracted with the Santa Clara County Firesafe Council to hold chipping programs and paid for studies to help us all prepare for a wildfire disaster. In 2024, Saratoga applied for and became one of only 11 cities in the state of California to be designated as a Fire Risk Reduction Community by CALFire’s Board of Forestry. This achievement recognized Saratoga’s efforts in reducing fuel, building knowledge of fire prevention and the work done to minimize the risk of wildfire in our community. There is a lot more to be done, and we’ll keep at it.

But wildfire preparedness cannot be the responsibility of the city alone. It also depends on what we do as communities and individuals.

If you live in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) or one of the Fire Hazard Zones, please consider creating a Firewise community. Firewise is a national program where each community of eight to 200 homes works together to create defensible space and clear brush, agrees to continue the work annually and submits an application to Firewise USA. Once approved, residents within the Firewise Community area may be eligible for insurance discounts and certainly become more aware of how to prepare for a wildfire. Firewise community members get to know each other better, look out for each other and help their neighborhoods be safer from wildfire. Please visit sccfiresafe.org for more information on how to get started or give me a call.

On an individual level, I strongly encourage everyone who lives in our hillsides to get to know your neighbor. At the very least, get to know every neighbor who has a property line adjacent to yours. Neighbors become your first line of support and defense in the event of an emergency. We need to work with each other to create defensible space and help each other during emergencies.

Many of the non-hillside neighborhoods have formed Neighborhood Watch groups. Each Neighborhood Watch group is eligible for funding from the city to have get-togethers each year to facilitate stronger communities and build relationships. Learn more about the program at saratoga.ca.us/NeighborhoodWatch.

The better we know each other, the better we feel about watching out for each other. That connection becomes especially important in an emergency, when we may need to know who needs assistance and who can help. Let’s make that happen in our hillsides.

Your city council is here to help you, and city staff want to assist. We’ll engage the fire department and our law enforcement agency to help, too. Preparedness is a shared responsibility, and by working together, we can make Saratoga safer.

Chuck Page is the mayor of Saratoga.