Firewise - Southwest Colorado Council
Monthly Meeting Outcomes
December 13, 2005

 

Present: Jack Cannon, Marsha Porter-Norton, Ben Cordova, Nicole Smith, Laurie Robison, Pam Wilson, Kristie Borchers, Dan Ochocki, Dan Noonan, Maureen Keilty, Harry Bruell

Community Wildfire Protection Plan Workshop: Six local landowners attended and twenty others; it was the first workshop of this nature in the state given by CSFS; the result will be a product taken around the state to be continually improved. Nicole was contacted by Kevin O’Dea who is funded by the Wilderness Society and based in Denver. He has been hired to help individuals and subdivisions throughout the state write CWPPs. His email is kevin_odea@tws.org. Any landowner/subdivision who is writing a CWPP is welcome to contact him for assistance. The council will send out a thank you note to the three Ft. Collins CSFS folks who helped out with the workshop.

Fire Month: Council gave input as to what they would like to see as part of April is Fire Month in 2006. . . Home Depot Booth was effective—should do that again (Ben); Article in Colorado Country Life on the ambassador program (Pam); Keep neighborhood ambassador events; public outreach is really important, creates awareness, really effective; Home and garden shows could be a possibility; Kristie suggested having an ambassador recruitment event in February—Maureen commented that it really could be weather dependent. Pam suggested doing a clean-up day or an on-the-ground mitigation project—great idea!

Regretfully, this is Kristie’s last meeting with fire council. We will miss her dearly. Proposal to rearrange the structure of the council executive committee to have two co-chairs rather than pres, vp, sec and then have a strong committee structure—Committees would be A) Education, B) Mitigation C) Policy/Public Will. The point was made that co-chairs’ effectiveness would be dependent on who they were because there was no real line of authority. The group felt that agency leadership would not be in the best interest of the council. There was discussion on what the fire council’s goals were and what we were really doing. We need accountability in the Ambassador program. We thought that we should work out the strategic plan first and then revisit the structure.

Strategic Planning Continued. . . . . . .
Key Result Area from last time=”Keep homes, properties and lives from being damages and hurt by wildfire”

Method 1 = Educate residents, property owners, community groups and decision makers to take responsible action

Method 2 = Encourage and assist with mitigation

Method 3 = Improve community response to wildfire. Example, Red Zone software—ambassadors can help collect data and in public education—lot specific; we should hear if we received the grant for the Red Zone software within the next two months.

Method 4 = Build capacity of the Council itself and build partnerships
A. Get more ambassadors involved by 12/06
B. Meet bimonthly with committees operating and co-chairs
C. Explore Red Cross involvement and partnership
D. Insurance agents, real estate, city/county, homebuilders, Southern Ute Tribe
E. Plan a year of meetings, speakers etc.—have committees do goals, outcomes and tasks at January meeting

Method 1--Education—Marsha Porter-Norton (Chair)
A. Fire Month
Booth—Home Depot
Article—Colorado Country Life
Mitigation Event
Ambassadors do Events
Media
B. Utilize National FireWise Conference Information
C. Evening Speakers 2/year
Goat Lady; Climate Change, drought, Beetle kill
D. Outreach—take table to them
E. Doubling the ambassador program to 34-42; build in accountability—use website; get staffing; continuing education for ambassadors and council members
F. Website use to promote Fire Council more
G. Check in on brochures and do more distribution and develop list and follow-up
H. Support the adoption of local and county policies that promote responsible action regarding wildfire, public safety, access and emergency issues--Educate, letters, presentations, get folks to meetings, give testimonies
I. Assist in data collection for Red Zone
J. Bring in marketing expertise

Method 2—Encourage and Assist with Mitigation (Bob Koenig Chair)
A. Advertising private companies services (e.g. Chipper)
B. Seek funding for demo projects and promote them
C. Promote CSFS/BLM funding for mitigation
D. Do April event
E. Assist ambassadors with mitigation (get unstuck)
F. Signage at Demo sites—council assists

Method 3—Improve the Community Response (We do not need a committee associated with this)
A. Conduct a table top activity with ambassadors—can be done as part of the education committee
B. Red Zone software (education committee)
C. Ambassador’s assistance during a fire

In the end the council decided that two co-chairs with a strong committee focus would provide the structure for the council during 2006. Harry Bruell and Nicole Smith agreed to take on the roles of the co-chairs. The council decided that meetings will be held bi-monthly during 2006 (every other month). During the January meeting (January 17) we will discuss agendas for the six meetings in order to put together a list of topics and ‘programs’ that can be distributed for recruitment/retainment purposes. The education and mitigation committees will need to meet between the bimonthly meetings and then report back to the larger group.

Next meeting January 17, 2006 5:30pm to 7:30pm LPEA Boardroom