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Fire Chronicle #11
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Laura McCarthy, Forest Trust
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Jul 23, 2002 13:34 PDT
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FIRE CHRONICLE: Stories of the National Fire Plan
Number 11
July 23, 2002
A NEW MODEL TO FIRE-PROOF FOREST HOMES
By Laura McCarthy
The big blazes in Arizona and Colorado this summer have increased public
awareness of actions that homeowners can take to reduce the losses to
their property. Public sentiment is placing responsibility for thinning
forest backyards on people who choose to own homes in the forest. On
June 23, the New York Times reported that, “The fires this time are also
prompting calls to enact a new social contract. People living in fire
zones would have to do preventive maintenance to expect government help
when the woods catch fire.”
Yet, for many homeowners, it is difficult to take fire-proofing action,
which usually involves cutting some beloved trees, and hard to get
motivated unless a fire has recently come close. Mike Petersen, director
of The Lands Council, has developed an outreach program that is
effective at getting homeowners around the boundaries of the Colville
National Forest in WA to take fire-proofing action. After a
“spectacularly unsuccessful” round of public meetings and workshops,
Petersen and his staff decided to take their message door-to-door. This
time, the outreach was effective and the program is now serving as a
model for programs to create defensible space in the wildland-urban
interface.
The Lands Council, based in Spokane, WA, is best known for its
environmental advocacy. As they crafted a position on public land
management of fire-adapted ecosystems, they identified public attitudes
as a key barrier to using prescribed fire to restore natural fire
regimes in today’s degraded forests. Because of their interest in the
public perception of fire, The Lands Council began attending meetings of
federal, state and local officials. They soon learned that the most
immediate problem confronting the agencies was how to protect homes in
the wildland-urban interface.
Nearly a decade ago, the community of Spokane faced a major wildfire in
its midst and when the smoke cleared, they created an organization
called FireSafe Spokane to address the need to create defensive space
around homes. Even before the federal Firewise program existed, FireSafe
Spokane was developing information to assist homeowners to take action
to protect their homes from wildfire. Entering the scene in 2000,
Petersen observed that most of the existing landowner outreach was
focused on the suburban areas around Spokane. Not much was happening in
the rural areas of the Selkirk Mountains and the lands bordering the
Colville National Forest.
Seeing a need it could fill, The Lands Council applied for a rural
community assistance grant to educate people living near the Colville
National Forest about fuel reduction treatments and to offer technical
assistance to property owners to create plans for defensible space
around their homes. The Forest Service funded the proposal with money
from the 2001 National Fire Plan. The Lands Council began by obtaining
mailing lists from county offices, organizing three public meetings, and
posting flyers in country stores and community buildings. A total of
eight people attended the three outreach events and none of the
homeowners followed through with a defensible space plan. Petersen
quickly realized that the meetings were leading nowhere. With nothing to
lose, he changed tactics and sent staff door-to-door in the target area.
This time, the project was a resounding success. The Lands Council has
visually examined more than 1,300 homes and created a geo-referenced
database about the condition of each property they visited. When the
visual assessments revealed risk factors – such as firewood stacked
against the house, a wood-shake roof, or continuous fuels from the
forest to the house – the staff knocked on the door and offered a
complete assessment. Wildfire Education Coordinator Daniel Henry and his
assistant met with over 200 homeowners, and with only one exception,
their free technical assistance was welcomed. Several dozen of the
homeowners used The Lands Council’s assistance to write fire management
plans for their property. The staff have been busier than ever this
year, assisting homeowners with an average of 3 fire plans per week.
The Lands Council program is making it easier for people who live in the
wildland-urban interface to fulfill their responsibility to maintain
defensible space against fire. If targeted at low-income households, the
door-to-door method could also help reduce the social inequities that
result when wildfires destroy homes. In other parts of the country, such
as the Southwest, community groups are starting to replicate Petersen’s
door-to-door approach. Each outreach effort demonstrates that
communities in the West do have the capacity to live with fire in their
midst.
FOR MORE INFORMATION contact The Lands Council 921 W. Sprague, Suite
205, Spokane, WA, 99166, 509-838-4912, or mpete-@landscouncil.org
FIRE CHRONICLE is edited by the Forest Trust. We welcome your comments,
stories, and observations about how the national fire plan is being
implemented (just send a reply message and it will go to the list
moderator). To subscribe to FIRE CHRONICLE go to
http://www.topica.com/lists/firechronicles/ or send an email message to
lau-@theforesttrust.org
PAST ISSUES OF FIRE CHRONICLE can be downloaded from
http://www.theforesttrust/forest_protection.html#fire
1. 2002 Fire Plan Appropriations will Benefit from 2001 Experience
2. Wildland-Urban Interface Definition a Barrier to Accountability
3. Stewardship Blocks: Innovative Tool Brings Fire Plan Benefits into
Community
4. Youth Training Needed for Fire Plan to Benefit Local Workforce
5. Grants Get National Fire Plan Money into Communities
6. Collaborative Forest Restoration Program Creates New Solution to
Gridlock
7. Permits Regulate Prescribed Burning On Private Land
8. Accountability Remains a Key Issue for National Fire Plan
9. National Partnership Advances Landscape-Scale Forest Restoration
10. Poor Communities Most Threatened By Wildfire
COMMUNITY STEWARDSHIP COMMUNICATOR is an electronic bulletin that
provides information about the national Community Stewardship
Collaborative’s effort to find solutions to issues related to
large-scale watershed projects on the national forests and the national
fire plan. The bulletin is prepared by the Pinchot Institute for
Conservation and is available by contacting nra-@pinchot.org
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