Campaign Will Urge San Diego Homeowners to Clear Brush

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published May 15, 2008 at 6:05 AM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

San Diego's Office of Emergency Services will fund a campaign this summer to urge residents to create defensible space to protect their homes from wildfires. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

San Diego's Office of Emergency Services will fund a campaign this summer to urge residents to create defensible space to protect their homes from wildfires. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Brush clearance and creating defensible space around a home is mandatory is some fire districts but not all not.

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Lane: What we are looking for is voluntary compliance.

Ron Lane is head of County Emergency Services. He says the county plans to use several hundred thousand dollars, including Homeland Security funding, to launch a public education campaign while the memory of the last wild fires is fresh in peoples' minds.

Lane: Thousands of homes were inside the fire perimeter survived because of defensible space and that's the message we want to get out to people is even if the fire goes through your community you still have a decent shot of saving your home if you take simple precautions around your home."

Lane says defensible space does not mean clear cutting around a home. He says the campaign will aim to educate residents on how to landscaping for fire protection. It is due to launch in late August, just one month before the height of the fire season.

Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.