A narrow stretch of Sunset Drive overlooking Villa Chanticleer, which has been called out by its residents as a potential hazardous location in an emergency, experienced a real-time test last Friday morning when a contractor’s pickup truck suddenly caught fire, sending flames over 20 feet into the canopy of the wooded neighborhood.
While the fire department arrived on the scene relatively quickly, its efforts to extinguish the blaze led to controlled traffic on the road at intervals for up to an hour—raising pre-traumatic stress among the neighbors. “The narrows were impassable for an hour!” texted Mima Petrick to her husband John, at 9:13am Dec. 20. “Everyone agreed that now the fire department can say that this is unacceptable… Everybody on the other side of the narrows would not have been able to get out.”
The term “the narrows” is a descriptive one the residents of Sunset Drive, Stewart Lane and Valley View Drive have come to apply to a quarter-mile stretch of the road that, lacking a sidewalk or curb, seems to be at risk of sliding downhill into Villa Chanticleer property—and perhaps taking a car with it. Or at the very least being too “narrow” for both first responder vehicles and evacuating residents during an actual emergency.
Several times during the past two years, members of the neighborhood have used the public comment period of Healdsburg City Council meetings to call attention to the dangers inherent at this pinch-point of the road, in case an evacuation is necessary due to earthquake or fire.
When a contractor’s 2005 Ford F450 caught fire on Friday morning, exactly at the location of concern for many of the neighborhood residents, their worries flared up again.
“There was smoke coming from under the hood, then a flash, and that was followed by the fire—my husband Hector jumped out of the vehicle, and it was engulfed within seconds,” said Adriana Barragan. She and her husband own Smooth Style Concrete Construction of Windsor, and were on their way to a job they were working further up Sunset Drive.
“It could have been the brakes, it could have been electrical,” she said. “We’re not 100% sure. We’ve been driving that truck up and down for the last couple days, and it’s been fine. So it was a shock to us, too.”
The fire department arrived in seven minutes, and a foam fire treatment was applied to extinguish the fire by suffocating it. The leaves of the trees arching above the site of the fire were scorched, but the fire did not spread.
“If it was the summertime, I feel like it could have been worse, honestly, because the flames did get up to the tree,” Barragan said. “So I feel definitely like if it happened in the summertime, we would’ve been in big trouble, really. It would’ve been a lot worse.”
Fire Marshal Lance Macdonald, who has met with the concerned residents of Sunset Drive, stated, “I’d like to emphasize that in an evacuation scenario, we would have been able to facilitate the safe evacuation of residents even with our fire apparatus on scene. In this specific case, there was sufficient room to perform our duties while maintaining the ability to allow vehicles to pass when it was safe to do so.”
The truck, which was pulling a trailer, was a total loss. It was towed away before noon, and the stranded mostly undamaged trailer was removed before day’s end.
Neighborhood COPE
Tim Leach is a retired investment executive, a Sunset Drive resident and a member of the neighborhood Fitch Mountain COPE (Citizens Organized to Prevent Emergencies). Like other members, he attended several City Council meetings over the past couple of years to make the council members more aware of the issue of the narrows—and to encourage them to put a fix in the public works budget before an actual emergency led to potentially tragic consequences.
“The basic message was the inadequate width of that portion of Sunset Drive to allow for emergency vehicles coming in, in the event of some kind of emergency, and allowing for pedestrian cars to exit at the same time,” he said.
“In that section of Sunset, there is an embankment on one side and a steep drop-off on the other. There’s no barrier. There’s not anything preventing someone from missing the edge of the road and having an accident going down the hill,” he added. Especially in the smoky conditions of a fire emergency, or a midnight flight from disaster.
Though the residents spoke to the City Council on several occasions this past year, Leach said they’ve been trying to get the message across since 2017. Leach said he was one of the first people to meet with the City right after the Tubbs fire, meeting with the assistant city manager and Larry Zimmer, the city’s Public Works director.
“They were appreciative of our concerns, but made it very clear that there wasn’t money in the budget to make the significant repair work that would be required to widen the street out … but they certainly seemed willing to listen,” he said. “That’s when we launched our efforts to make our opinion more widely known.”
Another member of COPE, Rachelle Chong, spearheaded the effort to line up residents to speak in series to the City Council during the public comment period toward the beginning of the meetings. Since comments are limited to three minutes, several residents would “tag-team” to deliver their complaints, and request that the City prioritize public safety—their safety—over more cosmetic or commercial upgrades already in the Public Works calendar.
A number of different residents represented the group on different occasions. When asked whether the truck fire on Sunset Drive rekindled their interest, Leach answered, “Yeah, no pun intended. Absolutely.”
It would be no small job, but Leach and others adamantly maintain it’s a job that should be done. There are certainly other projects on the City’s public works list, “laudable projects, but with varying priorities,” as Leach put it. “Some of which are commercial priorities. I get that, but in this case, this is a health and safety priority.”
The effort and expense to widen and make “conforming” that section of Sunset would not be incidental. It would take engineering studies, perhaps a substantial retaining wall on the downhill side and on the uphill side as well, to prevent slippage from either direction.
“It would be expensive to do because of the engineering and all that, but at the end of the day, what’s the price of having an adequate, safe ingress and egress?” Leach asked.
When asked about the issue this week, Public Works Director Larry Zimmer responded, “Recognizing the need to make improvements to that segment of Sunset Drive, the City has included the project in the 5-year capital improvement budget.”
Macdonald, following the truck fire’s clean-up, said, “I understand the concerns of the residents, and I hope this information provides some reassurance. Every situation is different, but we are committed to prioritizing public safety and responding appropriately, and we really appreciate this neighborhood’s diligence in fire and emergency preparedness.”
