Sec 41-2148. State wildland-urban fire safety committee; definition

A. The state wildland-urban fire safety committee is established consisting of twelve members appointed for three year terms as follows:

1. Four members who are appointed by the governor as follows:

(a) A fire chief or fire marshal of a paid municipal fire department of a city with a population of fifty thousand persons or more.

(b) The state forester or the state forester's designee.

(c) A member of the Arizona fire chiefs' association.

(d) A city or town planning and zoning official from a municipality with a high risk wildland-urban interface area with a population of fifty thousand persons or more.

2. Four members who are appointed by the president of the senate as follows:

(a) A resident of, and property owner in, a city, town or county with a high risk wildland-urban interface area.

(b) A person who owns property and serves as a firefighter for a fire district in an area at high risk from wildland fire.

(c) A watershed management expert.

(d) A member in a liaison capacity with this state's congressional delegation. This member may be appointed from nominees solicited by the president of the senate from one or more members of Congress.

3. Four members who are appointed by the speaker of the house of representatives as follows:

(a) A wildland fire science expert from region 3 of the United States forest service who resides in this state.

(b) A person who holds a professional position in forest ecology and who is knowledgeable about the effects of forest thinning on the biological diversity of forests.

(c) A property owner from a county with a population of less than five hundred thousand persons who has knowledge and expertise in property development in wildland areas.

(d) A registered architect with expertise in designing residential dwellings.

B. The committee shall annually select a chairperson from its membership. The committee shall meet at the call of the chairperson or on the request of at least four members of the committee. Members of the committee are not eligible to receive compensation for their service on the committee but are eligible for reimbursement of expenses pursuant to title 38, chapter 4, article 2.

C. The committee shall develop recommendations for minimum standards for:

1. Safeguarding life and property from wildland fire and fire hazards.

2. Preventing wildland fires and alleviation of fire hazards.

3. Storage, sale, distribution and use of dangerous chemicals, combustibles, flammable liquids, explosives and radioactive materials in wildland-urban interface areas.

4. Fire evacuation routes and community alert systems.

5. The creation of defensible spaces in and around wildland-urban interface areas as authorized by existing county and municipal laws and ordinances.

6. The application of adaptive management practices to use in monitoring data from treatment programs to assess the effectiveness of those programs in meeting forest health objectives.

7. Other matters relating to wildland-urban fire prevention and control that the committee considers to be necessary.

D. The committee shall issue an annual report with recommendations to the governor and the legislature by December 31 of each year. The committee shall provide a copy of the report to the secretary of state and the director of the Arizona state library, archives and public records.

E. For the purposes of this section, " wildland-urban interface" means a geographical area where residential or commercial structures meet or intermingle with federal, state, tribal or other public land that is undeveloped, other than transportation or utility infrastructure.