Below is a letter-to-the-editor posted in the September 2024 Orinda News

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your article last month on the fire insurance crisis included a small section about wildfire prevention, which is the true crisis. Unfortunately, it missed the mark.

While it dismisses the science of fire prediction modeling, labeling it "controversial" and "unproven theory", it is exactly what insurance companies use to determine who to insure.

Important to note:
* Orindans told the city four years ago that wildfire prevention was their number one priority.
* They have voted to pay $4 million a year in sales tax to supplement the $23 million a year they are already paying MOFD ($4.5 million more than MOFD spends to service Orinda).
* If the government's efforts to provide an effective wildfire prevention program were working, why did the SF Chronicle note on July 25: “At 2,220 total, the 94563 ZIP code covering Orinda had the most nonrenewals of any ZIP code in the state”?
* The insurance industry, experts at measuring risk, is pulling out of Orinda, and not because Orinda homes are more expensive.

Local wildfire prevention and fuel mitigation experts have estimated that there is still $12 million of work to be done to maximize Orinda's fire safety. $12 million the government has available, because the taxpayers are providing it, but is not using on the one thing that will reduce wildfire risk, fuel reduction.

Details on what can and should be done to reduce fire risk in Orinda can be found at www.SaferOrinda.info/LatestNews.

Steve Cohn