FIREWISE PERIMETER PROJECT- Dustin Mutch, our Landowner Assistance Forester, reports that 13 landowners participated in the Phase 3 Shaded Fuel Break Perimeter Project, and 44.48 acres were completed, at no cost to the residents, FREE! Thank you to all who participated and made themselves and their neighbors safer. Also, while Dustin doesn't have an update on when we can do a Phase 4, it is a possibility. More information to come on that.
NEW FIREWISE VOLUNTEER FORM- If you look on the website you will see that there is a new version of The Firewise Volunteer Worksheet, available under the Firewise and Data Entry Forms sections. We encourage everyone to use this form to report vegetation removed, hours worked, and money spent making your property more Firewise. Your firewise committee submits this information to Firewise USA once a year in November, so get your forms submitted by October 31st to be included for this year, and then continue to submit forms to be counted next year. None of your personal information is sent in, just a community total of vegetation removed, hours worked, and money spent. There are a lot of new activities that count toward firewising, and examples are listed on the form. We hope to soon have a link on the form which will direct you to the many activities that can be counted. All this activity makes us all safer, and also makes us eligible for grants, like our $4,000 micro-grant, and projects like our free DNR perimeter projects.
ASSESSMENTS-One more new thing on The Volunteer Worksheet is assessments. Please report assessments done on your property by our DNR representatives. Our Firewise Action Plan for 2026 calls for assessments to be done on 30% of ponderosa properties. Charlie Landsman, our DNR Community Resilience Coordinator, does the Defensible Space Assessments, and these also help make us eligible for grants. Again, none of your personal information is shared. Per Charlie, these are one on one site visits of your property to identify hazards and mitigation actions to reduce the risk of loss from wildfire. These visits are free and only educational., providing you as the homeowner a list of prioritized risk reduction actions..A site visit usually takes an hour and begins by identifying any ember ignition risks to the home itself. About 75% of homes lost to wildfire ignite from embers, which can travel for miles. Fire does not need to be in the community to cause structure loss. The first part of the visit will address ember ignition risks by looking at the exterior of the home at construction materials, building methods, and current conditions to identify steps that can be taken to reduce ember ignition risks. The second part of the visit will address defensible space and hazardous fuels around the home The space out to 100ft from the home is where wildfire directly impacts the survivability of the structure, and the assessor will identify trees, shrubs, grasses, plantings, or man made fuels present that could be mitigated to reduce the likelihood of a direct ignition. The purpose of this program is to educate residents to take steps themselves to reduce risk, or to connect them with existing financial assistance programs to make your community safer for both residents, and firefighters. There are many reports, including in the local paper, of Gorge area residents whose houses survived after they took Firewise actions on their property. We plan to set a date in October for a Big Day of Assessments. If we have enough sign-ups Charlie will be helped by an expert from The Conservation District, and/or a trained firefighter. You can call Tobiah and Adar at 509-773-6249, and get on their list if you are interested. We have several people, including me, on the list already. If you can't make that day, we can arrange assessments at other times when Charlie is available. Sign-up! Be smarter, and safer! Also, when Dustin does an assessment of your forest for cost share or perimeter project, these assessments can also be listed on your Volunteer Worksheet.
