ARC Wildfire Mitigation Activities
 Work
days, demonstration sites, distribution of education materials,
cost share programs from the State Forest Service, and other assistance
is provided or promoted by ARC.
For instance the Red Cross and a local fire department may organize
a community wildfire preparedness day. For a community wildfire
preparedness day, Bear's main partners are local fire districts
and volunteer fire departments. Usually Bear contacts a local fire
department and asks if they would like to have a presentation to
the community about defensible space and wildfire hazards. He works
with the fire department to develop a community wildfire preparedness
flyer and agenda for the meeting, and then he goes door-to-door
to pass out the flyers. The presentations are held at the local
fire station. Bear lines up speakers on technical issues like fire
history, fire behavior, defensible space, home fire preparedness,
and evacuation planning from BLM and USFS. State Forestry will talk
about their 50/50 cost share program for creating defensible space
around homes. BLM will encourage the community to do a preplan and
talk about the funding they have available for those plans.
Bear has had mixed results since getting started
in Mesa County. In the summer of 2002, he held a meeting at Glade
Park that was not well attended. But then had one with the Plateau
Valley Fire Department in the same summer that was attended by 82
people. They had greater attendance at the Plateau Valley meeting
because smoke from a local fire was present in the neighborhood.
The local fire department and Red Cross volunteers went door-to-door
talking to residents to encourage attendance. The meeting was followed
up with home site assessments from the CSFS. Out of this particular
meeting, 35-40 people wanted defensible space assessments for their
homes. On average Bear estimates about 30% of the people that attend
preparedness meetings follow through to do the mitigation work.
The home assessments are free and then it is up to the homeowners
to do the defensible space work. Two other meetings in 2002 in Colbran
and Mesa attracted 65 and 58 residents respectively.
The ability to get out and do home site assessments have been the
biggest help to ARC's partner agencies. ARC uses the same prescription
used by CSFS-the defensible space zone prescription that preceded
the 6.302 prescription. Both CSFS and ARC find this is a more user-friendly
prescription for the homeowner. If a homeowner wants to be involved
in the cost share program, they will work with CSFS, possibly with
ARC's initial assistance. But if they want to work on their own,
then they can just work with ARC. In 2002, ARC did 218 home site
assessments in Mesa County. Bear usually works with a forester and
the forester actually does the treatment design, while Bear talks
to the homeowner about defensible space and treating the 30-foot
area directly around the home. Bear estimates it would take about
$300,000 on an annual basis to address the cost share needs in the
ten counties they cover on an annual basis, including Mesa County.
A more aggressive cost share program would help accelerate treatment,
say an 80/20 cost share.
ARC hopes to expand more in the direction of doing community wildfire
preparedness on private lands next to public land where agencies
are actively working so they create "seamless landscape scale
mitigation".
Glade Park
 Glade
Park is a small community of 1,600 that is not under a taxable fire
protection district, but rather has organized its own volunteer
fire department. Glade Park Fire Department has existed since 1980.
Nearly 60% of their calls are wildland fire, 30% are medical and
10% are structural fire. They used Global Positioning Satellite
to map the 425 homes in their area to facilitate easy location in
case of a fire. Glade Park recently got a new Fire Chief who has
been very active in getting his folks trained, and has also been
proactive in interagency cooperation. The biggest problem in Glade
Park is getting people to create defensible space. Even though there
are regulations for creating defensible space on new properties,
these are not enforced and most people don't even know they exist.
In fact the previous Fire Chief has not done defensible space on
his land. During the Dierich Fire in 2002, the  community
was evacuated and this raised awareness among the people. Some people
seem to be doing more defensible space and CSFS is putting out defensible
space information at local stores.
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Glade Park Fire Department
Glade Park Fire Department relies almost
solely on contributions to fund their activities, since there
is no tax base for the fire department. One activity they
have is a movie they show on the side of the firehouse every
Friday night. Donations go to support the Glade Park Fire
Department. The first movie in 1981 brought in $37, now they
bring in $750-2,400 annually. In the fall 2003, Glade Park
purchased a BLM truck from the proceeds of their Friday night
movie fund. In 2002 they used VFA/RFA money to purchase a
BLM brush truck. The BLM has done hundreds of acres of fuels
reductions in the Glade Park/Pinyon Mesa area. The challenge
has been to get their projects closer to peoples' homes. People
don't want cut trees and roller-chopped brush next to their
property where it will do the most good from a wildfire hazard
reduction standpoint. BLM has 7 thinning projects planned
for the next few years around Glade Park. They have passed
the Environmental Assessment and will be implementing the
projects.
Colorado State Forest Service Cost-Share Programs
National
Fire Plan money is available to private landowners for
50% cost-share fuels reduction to a specified standard. CSFS
generally cost-shares a fuel break or defensible space type
clearing as well as forest thinning. There are specified standards
that have to be achieved to get the cost-share funding for
all treatment work. CSFS in Mesa County uses what they call
"defensible space zones," the predecessor to the
6.302 prescription, for defensible space work on homeowner
property. CSFS also funds volunteer fire departments and fire
districts to coordinate defensible space in their areas. In
the past all State Fire Assistance (SFA) WUI cost-share grant
monies for Mesa County were applied for by the Interagency
Fire Advisory Board (IFAB), but as of 2003 these funds have
been managed directly through CSFS-GJ. Since 2001 CSFS-GJ
has reimbursed $358,049 to landowners with 126 landowners
participating and 1,654 acres treated in the district, of
which 1,242 acres were treated in Mesa County for fuel breaks
and defensible space work.
In Mesa County in 2001, CSFS cost-shared
three fuel breaks for a total of 464 treated acres at a cost
of $89,367 ($192 per acre). In 2002, CSFS cost-shared 10 projects
that covered 694.6 acres of treatment at a cost of $92,604.
Three fuel breaks totaled $71,174 on 654 acres. The other
seven were defensible space projects on 40.6 acres costing
$21,430. In 2003 Mesa County treated 601 acres involving 9
landowners that did 2 fuelbreaks, and 7 defensible space/thinnings
at a cost of $27,903 ($46 per acre). The reason the cost/acre
was so low is 500 acres was a roller-chopping practice which
is very cost effective. The monies available for homeowner
defensible space cost share were capped at $50,000 in 2003,
so CSFS supplemented their cost share money with funds leftover
from 2002. The decrease in acres treated in 2003 results from
a greater emphasis placed on defensible space work over fuel
breaks.
Most people find out about the cost-share
program through their local fire departments and neighbors
that are doing treatments with cost-share money or through
the Red Cross program. ARC hands out 50/50 cost share d-space
applications when they do their programs and then it is up
to the CSFS to follow up. Word of mouth has been the most
effective method. People interested in the cost share are
referred to CSFS for the 50/50-match money. CSFS does the
follow-up inspection to be sure it meets their standards.
CSFS sends applications to interested people, does a site
visit to determine if fuels treatment is necessary, explains
the program, helps line up a contractor if the landowner doesn't
want to do the work themselves, then inspects the treatment
afterwards to ensure it meets the standards before approving
cost-share payment. Several landowners have decided after
they started that they didn't want to do the treatment to
standard and they were not given cost-sharing. "We make
it very clear in the beginning that this is not a 'property
clean-up' program; they will have to cut live trees, not just
dead ones, and if they don't do it to the standard they will
not get cost-sharing."
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