Perfect partners
At 9:32 p.m. on a Sunday in June, the phone rings. “Lightning just hit a big tree and it's on fire,” Jill anxiously says. “What do I do?”
Certain things go along with living in a forest. The critters think a house is their house, it's a long way to town, and wildfire is a continuous threat. But homeowners can keep the critters out, town eventually will grow closer, and residents can learn how to mitigate the risk of wildfire.
Washington state's Chuckanut Ridge is a quiet, mountainside community with 21 property owners of 20-plus-acre parcels of second-growth conifer forest. Eleven property owners have built houses and permanently live on the mountain. Twenty overstocked acres of 125-foot conifers puts a nice buffer between the community and the rest of the world.
At first, residents tended to enjoy just wandering around the forest, listening to the birds, seeing lots of small mammals, and encountering snakes, frogs and butterflies. But soon reality set in and they started thinking about what they were supposed to do to properly care for the forestland. The truth was, they really didn't know.
Coming to the rescue was the Washington State Department of Natural Resources' Forest Stewardship Program. Over several months, residents learned about forest health, wildlife habitat, forest economics and wildfire. The program culminated with the development of a comprehensive 10-year plan for the forest that then was approved by the state DNR and filed with the county. For most Chuckanut Ridge property owners, this was the first real exposure to understanding wildfire.
Having just finished the stewardship program, the homeowners set about implementing the forest plan. With lofty intentions, they began working in the woods, but it didn't take long before they felt overwhelmed by the task. How could they remove ladder fuels, limb up trees and increase forest health by selectively thinning 24 acres on 30° slopes? Many residents wondered what they had gotten themselves into. Fortunately, the stewardship program doesn't just end with a pat on the back and a diploma suitable for framing. The state DNR has many resources available for small forest owners and is willing and able to help.
Most communities have a sparkplug who points the direction and urges neighbors to follow. Roger and Kathy Mitchell are the Chuckanut Ridge sparkplugs for wildfire preparedness. Realizing neighbors' frustrations with trying to create defensible space, limb up trees, remove ladder fuels and more, they contacted DNR Regional Fire Prevention Coordinator Marc Titus. When homeowners explained their frustrations, he started working with them on solutions. As many of their neighbors were having the same experience, Titus introduced residents to Firewise Communities/USA. (See “Collaboration is Key,” page 12.) One of his DNR responsibilities was to foster this new Firewise program, and Chuckanut Ridge became his guinea pig.
Residents started organizing community workdays where the group's collective effort was able to remove ladder fuels along their one and only road. But there was a problem disposing of all the underbrush. Burning it would be too risky and hauling it off was physically impractical and expensive. Then Titus had an idea that changed everything.
Back then traffic only could enter or leave Chuckanut Ridge by one road — not exactly the safest situation. The ridge bordered DNR and state park land near the top, where a maintenance road passed near one home. Homeowners and Titus discussed creating a connection between Chuckanut Ridge's road and the DNR road as an alternate way for residents to escape and fire trucks to enter during an emergency. He spoke with the appropriate DNR officials and residents soon had their first community/DNR cooperative project — installing a gate at the border between Chuckanut Ridge property and DNR property. The community bought the gate and the DNR installed it. Residents now had an emergency egress and ingress.
The DNR has inmate work crews who are trained as supplementary wildland firefighters. These men can join the program only after meeting extremely rigid criteria, and it is considered a privilege for those who are allowed to participate. It was such a work crew that Titus used to create a shaded fuelbreak along the Chuckanut Ridge/DNR border. More importantly, that's when Titus had an idea — to have the inmate crew help Chuckanut Ridge residents with ladder fuels reduction along their road and create a fire break by cutting back their roadside scrub trees.
After obtaining the necessary permissions from the DNR and the community, the inmate crew and community residents worked side by side. Ten people on the crew supervised by a DNR employee and about as many Chuckanut Ridge residents moved an enormous amount of underbrush and ladder fuels out of the woods and put it alongside the road.
Titus had arranged with the county government for the work crew to borrow an industrial wood chipper. Now residents could dispose of tons of underbrush and ladder fuels by chipping it and blowing it back into the woods.
It is important to note that an industrial chipper was used. The chippers available at a big-box home improvement store won't cut it. It has to be one of those large chippers often seen towed behind tree service company trucks. Kathy and Roger Mitchell bought a used industrial chipper, which the community uses about 10 days a year to chip all the underbrush that is then hauled out of their defensible spaces, alongside the road and other accessible areas.
That was the community's turning point. With many residents performing additional activities around their homes and collectively mitigating wildfire through fuels reduction, six years ago residents qualified to be the first recognized Firewise Communities/USA program in western Washington, the 38th such community in the nation. With all that residents learned, they have become the model for Firewise activities in the area. Following Chuckanut Ridge's lead, about 20 other nearby communities have become Firewise Communities, and more are working toward it every day.
Prevention is key, but there still is a danger of wildfire and suppression becomes the name of the game. Here in Washington, as in many states, the local fire district has responsibility for suppressing structural fires and the DNR has responsibility for suppressing wildfire. Each is trained and equipped accordingly. In becoming a Firewise Community, residents worked closely with the Skagit County fire marshal, fire warden and Fire District #5 chief. Because of the rural location, the fire marshal wisely required each new house built on Chuckanut Ridge to be sprinklered internally and to store 10,000 gallons of water with a fire district-compatible Storz valve.
If a house catches fire, the forest becomes at risk; if the forest is on fire, the houses are at risk. Logistically, fire district engines are nearby but the DNR engines are not. For any fire on Chuckanut Ridge, both agencies will be called out but the local fire district will be first on scene.
The residents worked with John Leander, seasoned chief of Skagit (Wash.) Fire Protection District #5's Edison Station, and many of the DNR Fire Protection Services personnel, particularly longtime fire-protection forester Tom Smith. If a fire broke out on Chuckanut Ridge, time would be critical. The road is steep, narrow and twisty, and if fire crews don't know where they are going, they can waste a lot of time finding the right house or fire location, hunting for the Storz hookup, or even trying to find a place to turn around a 30,000-pound fire truck.
With Leander's wholehearted cooperation, residents started having the pump truck take practice runs up their road, with Edison station crews familiarizing themselves with the area. Residents also hooked up to and dynamically tested each Storz valve to ensure that they all worked. It's a good thing residents did; three had to be reconfigured or repositioned for useable access. When the DNR fire season crews began their training, residents asked a crew to do a similar familiarization run through their neighborhood. The trouble was, however, on any given day it isn't known whether the fire district engine or the DNR engine will respond. The crew responding to a real fire might not be familiar with Chuckanut Ridge, or it might be dark, foggy or smokey.
Residents developed a highly detailed topographic map, superimposed over an aerial map, that uses GPS-determined symbols to show where every house, propane tank, water source and Storz connection, safe area, staging area, wide spot in the road where two trucks can pass, mileage markers, and emergency helicopter landing pad are for the entire community. Armed with this map, even an unfamiliar crew can locate every structure, every resource and every danger area on Chuckanut Ridge. In the hands of an incident commander, logistics quickly become more easily managed.
Not satisfied with just the highly detailed map, Roger Mitchell put his photography hobby to use. Fire crews now have a run book in each apparatus with a two-page spread for each address that shows a GPS map segment on one page and a very detailed information guide on the other. The information page has sequential pictures of key intersections or landmarks seen while driving to that specific address, including key mileage readings from the entry point onto their road. It has a picture of the pump engine in the predetermined best position and hooked up to the Storz valve and indicates the predetermined hose lays and distances from water supply to the house. It shows how many people and pets normally would be found at the address. It details the house's construction materials, propane-tank location and hazards to firefighters, such as steep slopes. Even a firefighting crew that has never before been to Chuckanut Ridge can find its way to any address, know how to position the engine, connect to water, lay hose and what to expect at the houses without wasting precious response time.
In all of their preplanning, training and preparation of the run book, Leander and Asst. Chief Dave Lohman had concerns about the ability of the fire district's agricultural flatland-based apparatus to adequately serve the steep, narrow, twisty roads of Chuckanut Ridge and adjoining forested communities. Throw in some inclement weather and all bets are off. They researched apparatus and used their decades of volunteer fire service experience to come up with specifications for a Class A pump truck with compressed-air foam, short wheelbase and four-wheel drive that could get to and suppress either structural or early stage wildland fires in the mountainous, forested part of their fire district. The big trick, however, was getting the Fire District #5 commissioners to authorize the purchase. New fire trucks aren't cheap, and the district always had a very well-planned schedule for replacing its apparatus; inserting an expensive special-purpose truck was going to really put pressure on the budget.
With Leander's persuasive presentation, facts and a reasonable solution, the commissioners wholeheartedly endorsed the idea and agreed to purchase the specially designed fire truck. Leander and Roger Mitchell worked with the property owners association to decide where to house and how to crew the new fire truck. Having been a model Firewise Community for five years at that point, it wasn't a hard sell. Residents agreed that if the fire district would purchase the truck, provide the training and equip a new group of volunteer first responders, the association would provide a minimum of six volunteers to be trained and a garage to house the new truck.
For the last year, eight residents have been trained as volunteer first responders and have been actively responding to fire, medical and emergency incidents in the district. In a few weeks their new, specially designed wildland interface fire truck is due to arrive from the W.S. Darley factory after a detour through the Fire Department Instructors' Conference, where this first-of-its-kind apparatus was displayed. When it arrives, residents will load it up with all new equipment purchased with matching funds from a Washington State DNR Wildland Fire Assistance Grant.
So that's why Jill called neighbors when lightning started a fire in her forest. That's why residents knew exactly what to do. Volunteer Chuckanut Ridge first responders went to Jill's and Bob's property, and Leander and Lohman quickly arrived with a pump truck and the Edison station crew laid hundreds of feet of hose, and began suppressing a raging fire in a 125-foot Douglas fir tree with compressed-air foam. Allen station colleagues positioned themselves off-scene with another pump truck and the tender. Meanwhile, Leander had contacted DNR, which dispatched Tom Smith, an experienced wildfire incident commander, and a DNR crew. Several hours later, using Fire District #5's pumper run by Lohman, DNR crew seamlessly took over from Fire District #5's crew and, using the fire district's hose, completed suppression of the fire the next morning.
Years of cooperation, coordination and cross-training between the DNR, the local fire district, county emergency management, and a Firewise Community resulted in a successful ending to what could have been a nightmare.
Roger Mitchell, Ph.D., MBA, is a former research scientist turned senior executive who retired early to pursue a photography hobby and manage 24 acres of mixed conifer forest. He is very active in volunteer community activities as president of the North Sound Conservancy, member of the facilities committee for the local school district, president of his neighborhood's Firewise Community board, and as a volunteer firefighter/first responder with the fire protection district.
Kathy Mitchell is a former petroleum geologist, sales and marketing manager, and master gardener who retired early to pursue a watercolor artist hobby and manage 24 acres of mixed conifer forest. She is active in volunteer community activities as information researcher and Web master for the North Sound Conservancy, member of the Small Animal Disaster Evacuation Task Force, and as a volunteer firefighter/first responder with the fire protection district.
John Leander is the grandson of pioneers to the Edison area and a lifelong resident there. He has spent a distinguished career in volunteer community activities including 26 years as a volunteer with the fire protection district, the last 12 as chief. In his day job, he is in charge of all the non-instructional departments of the local school district, which includes transportation, maintenance and new construction, along with being the district safety officer.
Marc Titus is a former regional fire prevention coordinator and wildland firefighter for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. He pioneered the Firewise Communities/USA program and other interface initiatives in Washington state. He was a recipient of the 2006 National Firewise Leadership Award and was a 2006 Smokey Bear Award nominee. Titus serves as secretary for the IAWF. He currently is a consultant and AD firefighter living in Sedona, Ariz.
Fatalities, both firefighter and civilian, as well as property loss are rising rapidly. To examine why current programs are not resulting in a decline of these numbers, the International Code Council, in collaboration with other national organizations, spearheaded the formation of a national blue ribbon panel to consider all issues relevant to WUI fires. The panel was brought together to help identify improvements in national, state and local management of this escalating problem. The group includes representatives from over 40 national organizations and first met in June 2007, hosted by the National Association of Counties. A second meeting hosted by the National Association of Realtors was held in October 2007. The final Report was completed with the organizational review occurring in January and February; it was released on April 7.
This report summarizes areas of discussion and consensus arrived at by the panel. Representatives of the organizations that participated on the panel designated five key areas to examine and offered their findings and recommendations. In addition, as a result of the June panel meeting, a national e-mail was established to encourage input concerning this problem.
With a focus on collaboration, the panel appraises current guidelines and looks at the effectiveness of the current interface efforts among governmental and non-governmental organizations.
The panel considered the availability of community preparedness and emergency planning codes; community wildfire protection planning methodologies; and public education campaigns. The results of the panel provide key recommendations and actions for Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Department of the Interior to best address the national issue of interface fire.
To download the complete report, visit www.iccsafe.org/government/blueribbon.
Firewise Communities/USA standards are designed and maintained to give communities maximum flexibility in creating the best plan for their area. Communities should:
- Enlist a wildland-urban interface specialist to complete a community assessment and create a plan that identifies agreed-on achievable solutions to be implemented by the community.
- Sponsor a local board or committee that maintains the Firewise Community/USA program and tracks its progress or status.
- Observe a Firewise Communities/USA Day each year that is dedicated to a local Firewise project.
- Invest a minimum of $2 per capita annually in local Firewise projects. Work by municipal employees or volunteers using municipal and other equipment can be included, as can state and federal grants dedicated to that purpose.
- Submit an annual report to Firewise Communities/USA that documents continuing compliance with the program.
Candidate Firewise Communities/USA sites frequently self-select. Initial contact with the program is often made by a community resident, either over the Internet or through the state forestry agency. All contacts are listed at www.firewise.org/usa on the Contact a Representative page and have e-mail links.
Once contact has been established, the Firewise representative schedules a site visit to the community. A community assessment is performed either by the state liaison or his or her designee.
Community residents create a local Firewise board or committee. This is generally composed of a variety of homeowners. Fire staff participate as invited guests.
When the assessment is completed, the Firewise representative or his or her designee presents it to the Firewise board. The Firewise board uses the information in the assessment to create an agreed-upon, area-specific action plan for the community. The state liaison or his or her designee approves the plan.
The Firewise board works with the community to complete its first action item. This usually marks its first Firewise Day. Board members then download the Firewise Communities/USA application form from www.firewise.org/usa, complete it and submit it to the Firewise representative, along with supporting documentation.
Firewise Communities/USA status is renewable annually upon completion of that year's action item/Firewise Day. Both interactive and downloadable renewal forms are available at www.firewise.org/usa.
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