As a former firefighter and deputy chief with the Elfin Forest/Harmony Grove Fire Department, and a 40-year resident of Harmony Grove, I have witnessed and/or participated in fighting many of the wildland fires in this area during that time.
I have intimate knowledge of the fire-prone nature of this community and the evacuation hazards that these narrow, two-lane roads pose. My family and I have had to evacuate numerous times. In my opinion, the proposed Harmony Grove Village South project will create an extremely hazardous entrapment scenario.
The project, proposed in the unincorporated rural Harmony Grove community near Escondido, is scheduled to go before the Board of Supervisors on Oct. 1.
If approved, this development in an area with a history of severe wildfire losses will create a grave entrapment risk for the entire community the next time a wildfire breaks out. The board now has the responsibility to reject this project to protect lives and property, or to condition its approval with the provision of appropriate secondary access.
The current fire chief, Dave McQuead, recently told community members in a public forum that the “project would not get approved today without secondary access.” Additionally, numerous independent wildfire and safety professionals have evaluated the project and commented on the potential dangers it may pose.
They bring expertise from wildfire science, wildland-urban interface science, local-level meteorology, and civil and environmental engineering. They all conclude that, due to the project’s lack of a usable secondary access route, evacuation times would exceed predicted wildfire lead times, posing a serious risk of entrapment in the event of a wildfire.
The tightly packed configuration of the homes is conducive to fire spread despite the defensible space and fire-hardened construction required by law.
Because the county and the developer refused to conduct a comprehensive evacuation analysis that took into account the entire community surrounding the project, the community raised money to hire several independent experts.
One of them, Thomas Cova, PhD, a University of Utah professor who has consulted on federal, state and local fire codes and a renowned expert in wildfire evacuation, conducted a detailed analysis of realistic wildfire and evacuation scenarios for this project and concluded that “additional development [in the greater Harmony Grove community] represents a threat to public safety, as extreme wildfires may not allow enough time to safely evacuate community residents if the community is not designed to support rapid evacuation.”
This area is among the most fire-prone in the county (with a major fire at least once a decade) and will burn again – it’s just a question of when. If this project is approved in its current form, we will eventually see a Palisades-level entrapment tragedy.
The Board of Supervisors rejected the Lilac Hills development because of the high risk of entrapment. Why would we think Harmony Grove Village South would magically be exempt from this same risk?
I urge our San Diego County Supervisors to listen to the experts and vote to reject the Harmony Grove Village South housing project.
James McKim is a Harmony Grove resident and former deputy chief of the Elfin Forest/Harmony Grove Fire Department.
