As used in this chapter:
ABATE OR ABATEMENT: Shall mean an act used to remove, destroy, eliminate, size, impound, or any action taken to mitigate a public nuisance.
ABATEMENT COSTS: Shall mean any and all costs incurred by the City to enforce this chapter and to abate the hazardous vegetation or combustible material on any property pursuant to this chapter including physical abatement costs, administration fees and any additional actual costs incurred for the abatement proceeding(s), including attorney's fees, if applicable.
ACCUMULATION OF WEEDS: Includes, but is not limited to, permitting or allowing the growth of weeds.
COMBUSTIBLE MATERIAL/FUEL: Includes an accumulation of hazardous vegetation, garbage, rubbish, waste or material of any kind that is flammable and endangers the public safety by creating a fire hazard.
DEFENSIBLE SPACE: Means that area described in Government Code sections 51177 and 51182 and as otherwise described in this Code, which is adjacent to each side of a building or structure and within which hazardous vegetation and combustible material must be managed as set forth in this Code.
DIRECTOR: Means the Director of Development Services for the City of Placerville.
FIRE CHIEF: Means the Chief of the El Dorado County Fire Protection District (district).
FIRE HAZARD: Shall mean any condition, arrangement, act or omission which:
(A)Increases, or may cause an increase of hazard or menace of fire to a greater degree than that customarily recognized as normal by persons in the public service regularly engaged in preventing, suppressing or extinguishing fire; or
(B)May obstruct, delay, hinder or interfere with the operations of a Fire Department or the egress of occupants in the event of fire.
FUEL: Means any hazardous vegetation or combustible material, including petroleum-based products and/or hazardous vegetation.
GARBAGE: Includes, but is not limited to, the following: waste resulting from the handling of edible foodstuffs or resulting from decay, and solid or semisolid putrescible waste, and all other mixed, nonrecyclable wastes which are generated in the day- to-day operation of any business, residential, governmental, public or private activity, and may include tin cans, bottles and paper or plastic, or other synthetic material, food or beverage containers.
HAZARDOUS VEGETATION: Means vegetation that is flammable and endangers the public safety by creating a fire hazard including but not limited to seasonal and recurrent weeds, stubble, brush, dry leaves and tumbleweeds.
LADDER FUELS: Shall mean fuels that can carry a fire vertically between or within combustible material or hazardous vegetation.
REFUSE: Includes rubbish and garbage, as defined herein.
RUBBISH: Includes all the following, but is not restricted to, nonputrescible wastes, such as paper, cardboard, grass clippings, tree or shrub trimmings, wood, bedding, crockery, rubber tires, construction waste and similar waste materials.
STRUCTURE: Means any dwelling, house, building or other type of flammable construction including but not limited to a wood fence, deck or porch attached to any other structure.
WASTE: Means all putrescible and non-putrescible solid, semi- solid, and liquid wastes, including residential, commercial, and Municipal garbage, trash, refuse, paper, rubbish, ashes, industrial wastes, construction and demolition debris, discarded home and industrial appliances, manure, vegetable or animal solid and semi-solid wastes, and other discarded solid wastes and semisolid wastes.
WEEDS: As used in this chapter, includes any of the following:
(A) Weeds which bear seeds of a downy or wingy nature;
(B) Brush, slash or weeds which attain such hard growth as to become, when dry, a fire menace to adjacent improved property;
(C) Weeds and grasses which are otherwise noxious;
(D) Poison oak when the conditions of growth are such as to constitute a menace to the public health;
(E) Dry grass, stubble, brush, litter, or other flammable material which endangers the public safety by creating a fire hazard;
(F) Vegetation that is not pruned or otherwise neglected so as to attain such large growth as to become, when dry, a fire hazard to adjacent property. (Ord. 1698, 8-13-2019)