RES 2025054 - Laserfiche WebLink

Private Trees Pleasanton's privately owned trees are dispersed throughout private lots and along privately maintained streets throughout the WUI area. Whereas the public trees primarily occur as single rows of individual trees along roadways, trees on private properties form a more uniform, although rarely dense, canopy. Tree densities vary significantly from property to property, with some lots devoid of trees and others heavily populated. Private property generally contains more trees than public property because there is a greater area of private property than public property in the WUI areas. Within the entire City boundary, private trees account for 70% of the tree canopy cover within Pleasanton. Most urbanized landscapes are more fire-resistant than native landscapes since they are maintained and irrigated to some degree, although they do not always focus on minimizing wildfire risk. Ornamental irrigated landscapes that receive maintenance (removal of dead and dying plants, trimming, thinning) are generally less receptive fuel beds than an unmaintained native landscape. No inventory was conducted of trees on private property, and the exact composition of tree species on private property in the WUI areas is unknown. However, based on observations made during the inventory of City trees and field visits with City staff, the variety of tree species on private property in the WUI area is similar to that on City property. A large portion of the urban forest canopy on private property in the WUI areas is composed of trees that have more desirable characteristics againstfire, including native trees such as oaks and ornamentals such as fruittrees and broadleaf shade trees. Private properties do still have more trees with undesirable fire characteristics than public properties in the WUI areas. Dead Private Trees and Removals Dead trees on private property have the same fire potential as those on public property. However, where public trees are generally removed from buildings (more than 30 feet of separation) dead trees on private property can be much closer to a building. Therefore, they can be considered a greater fire hazard, particularly when they are within 10 feet of a structure because of the risk of a fire transitioning from the tree to the building. Like dead public trees, dead trees on private property are a transitory phenomenon because property owners remove them as they are unsightly and are at risk of falling onto a home or improvement. Private Tree Maintenance The maintenance of trees on private property varies. However, most of the properties observed during the field visits for the preparation of this section were maintained to some degree, though not always with an emphasis on fire safety. Because private trees are more likely than public trees to be close to a building, it is much more common to see private trees with inadequate clearance from a building, which is less than 10 feet of space between tree branches and a chimney. APPENDIX A -WILDFIRE 14 of 219