Community stakeholders discussed their individual and collective approaches to wildfire prevention, mitigation and evacuation this coming season during a Wednesday meeting hosted by the Nevada County Office of Emergency Services.
Sheriff’s Lt. Robert Jakobs began the discussion by highlighting Zonehaven, a zone-based evacuation project created by a San Francisco software developer.
“The zone concept is where we take counties and/or cities and break them up into manageable evacuation zones based off of topography, different types of roadways and architecture,” Jakobs said. “It can also be based off of population.”
Jakobs said pre-establishing the zones eliminates the delays experienced when evacuation boundaries are devised on the fly. The zones help authorities and civilians alike identify critical infrastructure and traffic control points.